Harry Potter: Journey of Lightning and Ice
by dragonmaster121
Summary: Two childhood friends, bound by fate, and tied by destiny; seek to understand the world of magic around them. With the support of each other and those around them, they will face the trials that destiny has in store for them.
1. Chapter 1:A meeting of lightning and ice

AN: I've been reading fanfiction on this site for a couple of years now, and wanted to try my hand at writing one. There will be some AU elements to this story, but it will be mostly canon compliant. That may change later down the road though, depends on where the story goes in the future. I will try to be keeping the story to a K+ to maybe a low teen rating, rated as teen though just to be safe. I'm not completely sure where that line is.

As this is my first fanfiction, and I'm not the best writer, the story will probably be a little rough in spots, Ill try to get it to flow as smoothly as possible, but writing was never my strongest point. I'll also do what I can on spell checking and grammar, but I'll probably miss some things here and there. On that note if you have any comments/constructive critics about the story please leave a review or PM me.

Here is a slightly edited version of the first chapter, thanks to Fangirling Way Past My Bedtime for betaing for me.

* * *

 **Godric's Hollow**

It was a quiet winter evening in the small village of Godric's Hollow, when suddenly a loud crack ringed though the tranquil village, barely disturbing the freshly fallen snow cloaking the trees. Outside the gate to a small two story cottage, stood two individuals dressed in dark blue started walking towards the gate of the cottage, only to be stopped by a small wail which broke the silence following their arrival seconds before.

"There, there my little Luna, no need to cry." One of the cloaked individuals calmly stated as she begun to rock the crying bundle back and forth in her arms. The woman continued to rock the small crying bundle in her arms as her snow colored hair started to spill out of her hood slightly, falling past her shoulders. The crying baby quickly began to calm in the rocking embrace of her mother as she fell back asleep into her blanket patterned in moving snowflakes.

"Pandora, lets hurry inside before we start to freeze." The other cloaked individual remarked as he opened the gate and proceeded to continue walking towards the cottage.

"Of course, Xenophilius." The newly identified Pandora remarked as she quickly followed behind her husband. The front door of the cottage opened as she reached the front steps.

"Hello Pandora, Xenophilius, come inside before you have to suffer anymore in this cold." Greeted a woman from the other side of the doorway. Her curled, auburn hair swaying slightly as she moved aside to allow her guests through the doorway. "And I see you brought Luna with you, I'm sure Harry would love to play with her. He certainly has some energy to burn as he just woke up from his nap."

"Greetings to you as well Lily." Pandora replied as she continued to pacify the now quietly sobbing bundle in her arms. "I'm sure they will both have fun."

"Hello Lily, I trust you and James are doing well this evening?" Xenophilius greeted as he closed the wooden door behind him. Quickly pulling out his wand and with a quick flick bother his and Pandora's heavy traveling cloaks floated over to the hooks on the left side of the entryway.

"We have been doing fine. Now why don't you both go join James and Sirius in the living room while I fetch Harry from his nursery." She responded as she then proceeded down to the end of the hall and up the stair to Harry's nursery.

The Lovegoods walked part way down the carpeted entryway before turning into a large family room lighted by a fairly large candle lit chandelier hanging from the ceiling in the center of the room. In front of them, against the wall was a large brown sofa where a tall man with combed black hair and glasses was currently sitting.

"Good evening Xenophilius, Pandora, please take a seat as Lily will only be another minute or two. And Sirius will be back momentarily, he went to the kitchen to get a quick snack." James greeted as the Lovegoods responded with a slight nod and proceeded to sit in the smaller loveseat to his left, Pandora still cuddling Luna in her arms.

"Pandora, Xenophilius, when did you get here?" A man questioned as he walked into the room carrying a treacle tart in his left hand. The man was of medium stature with unruly black hair and a thin mustache adorning his upper lip.

"We just got here Sirius, and it's good to see you too." Xenophilius replied with a smirk. "We came over because we thought Luna and Harry would have some fun playing together; that and we haven't been able to catch up with Lily and James much since they went into hiding."

"There isn't really much we can do besides going into hiding, not with the fact that Voldemort might be after Harry because of the prophecy." James responded somberly. "Although there isn't much to catch up on, Lily and I haven't left the cottage much since Dumbledore wanted us to go into hiding. We mostly just sit around the house either reading or playing with Harry, Lily does brew potions on occasion, but nothing really of interest."

"James's slight moping aside, there isn't much new since the last time we saw you, besides Harry starting to walk and the seldom occurrence of accidental magic." Lily continued as she walked into the room with Harry in her arms. She then set him down on the carpet between the sofas, then she took a seat next to her husband. "It's usually to get his blanket or one of his toys though."

"He can't seem to be able to go for 5 minutes without his lightning patterned blanket though." Sirius added with a slight chuckle as he continued to nibble on his treacle tart.

"Luna can't stand being separated from her blanket either, although we haven't seen any accidental magic yet." Pandora commented as she set Luna down on the carpet in front of her, several feet from Harry. "Luna, this is Harry, why don't you play with him a bit."

"Hawwy?" the white-haired girl questioned before a small glint of understanding appeared in her silvery eyes. She then proceeded to slowly walk towards the aforementioned child.

"Harry, not Hawwy, Luna, but great try though." Her mother corrected as she smiled approvingly at her.

"Harry, this is Luna, and she is going to play with you for a while." Lily told her son as he stood up looking at the girl walking towards him.

"Luna?" the small child questioned a moment before he nodded in understanding and started toddling towards the snow-haired girl.

"Very good Harry." Lily complimented with a smile adorning her face.

The two children continued to slowly walk towards each other as the adults watched them, waiting to see how their first interaction would pan out. As the two children got within about a foot of each other, Harry raised his right hand while Luna raised her left one to meet his. When their hands got within a few inches of each other, an arc of magic appeared from each of their palms connecting with the other's.

The two children just stared into each other's eyes the moment the arcs of magic connected with their respective palms, Luna into Harry's glistening green eyes, and Harry into her silvery orbs. This continued for several seconds as the adults just stared in first wonder, and then worry over what might be happening to the children. Sirius was the first to get over the initial shock of the events, and then proceeded to quickly get out of his chair, moving towards the children.

"Wait Sirius!" James cried as he quickly stopped his best friend from getting to the children. "We don't know what will happen if we stop them now, we don't want to accidentally hurt them. I know you're worried, we all are, but we need to wait for this to stop before we interfere with the children."

"James is right, we don't know what's happening, but we don't want to cause any damage by interfering. There is nothing we can do but wait for it to play out." Xenophilius remarked sadly as a feeling of uselessness began to pass over him. "At least it doesn't look to be causing any harm to them."

"I guess you're right." Sirius signed, a look of resignation spread across his face as he fell back into the chair.

"That's about all you can do at the moment. But don't worry, no harm will befall the children." A soothing voice calmly stated from the entrance of the living room.

At hearing the voice of the new comer, the five adults turned to see the newest presence in the room. There stood a tall woman a bit over six feet in height, locks of silver hair falling down the length of most of her back and framing the sides of her face. Sapphire eyes detailing the interaction between the two children. The pointed tips of her ears poking out of the hair flowing down the sides of her head. She wore a light green colored dress adorned with patterns of forest green colored ivy flowing across it. The dress flowed down the majority of her legs, showing of some of her light cream colored skin.

"Who are you?! And more importantly, what is happening with the children?" James hastily called out as he, Sirius and Xenophilius all quickly stood up, each drawing their wands and pointing them at the newcomer. Lily and Pandora also drew their wands but were more focused on their babies. Beginning to worry about what was happening with them.

It was at about this time that the arcs of magic connecting Harry and Luna's palms disappeared as quickly as they appeared a minute prior. After the magic disappeared the two children drifted in and out of consciousness for a couple of seconds before they both collapsed where they were standing.

"HARRY! LUNA!" The two frantic mothers yelled in unison as they rushed to the sides of their passed out children.

"The children are fine, merely unconscious from mild exhaustion, they will be fine after some sleep." The woman calmly mentioned as she continued to observe the children.

"You still haven't answered our questions." Sirius remarked while he and the others continued to hold her at wand point.

"My, my, you are an impatient one aren't you." The woman commented with a slight chuckle before waving her hand; instantly forcing the wands from the men's hands, and forcing them to sit back down into their seats. "I mean you no harm, I merely wanted to see these two with my own eyes. If you are civil with me I may answer some of your questions."

Pandora turned her head up from examining Luna to look at the woman in better detail when she noticed something. "Your ears." she muttered out, "what is an elf doing here?" she almost stuttered out with a little fear leaking into her facial features.

'An elf?' The rest of the group in the room thought as their facial features quickly began to copy Pandora's.

"Yes, I am an elf, took you a little longer than I expected you to realize it though." The woman responded with a slight smirk spreading across her face. "Now enough of that, are you all going to behave now?"

"Yes we will." Xenophilius quickly responded before anyone else could. "Now could you please answer our questions?"

"I suppose I can entertain that notion a little." she responded as her smirk grew slightly. "As for what happened with the children, it was the reaction for them meeting for the first time. Regarding why it happened, is something for them to learn at a latter date. As for who I am, that would take the fun out of it. I'll say one last thing before I go; you might want to give the children some room for a while."

"What do you…" Lily started to say as the smirk on the woman's mouth grew considerably before she vanished into thin air.

"What would an elf have been doing here, and why would she be interested in the children?" Pandora muttered out as she quickly cast a couple diagnostic charms on the two currently unconscious children."She was right though, the children seem fine except for a case of mild magical exhaustion."

"I don't have the faintest idea, but if an elf is involved the matter may become very complicated and even more dangerous." Luna's father sighed out as he allowed himself to relax slightly into his seat.

"On that note, I think we should keep what happened here to ourselves. If anyone even heard a rumor that any of us met with an elf; there would probably be no saving us from a dementor's kiss." James added with a bit of a grimace look taking over his facial features.

"I agree with James on this one; no one can know we had an encounter with an elf tonight, unwilling or not." Sirius followed up.

"Do you think we should tell Dumbledore about this? He might have an idea as to what happened with the children." Lily questioned as she continued to hold Harry securely in her arms.

"As much as we trust Dumbledore, we have no idea how he may react with an elf apparently being involved in this." Pandora commented. "In which case, I don't think we should tell him."

"I agree with her, the less people that know the better." Her husband answered. "Although I wonder what she meant when she said we had better give the children some space."

As Xenophilius finished speaking, the children began to emit small magical auras that quickly surrounded their bodies. Luna's was pure white in color, like she had just been covered in a thin layer of freshly fallen snow; while Harry's was a pale yellow, like he was wrapped in the embrace of a lightning bolt. And this didn't go unnoticed by either mother.

"Ahhh!" Both mothers yelled as they jump back a couple of feet. Pandora's hands were showing the beginning stages of frostbite, while Lily had first degree burns littering hers. This caused them to drop both of the children, allowing them to fall to the ground with a soft thud.

"Sirius, can you get me some burn salve from the potion cabinet." Lily asked as she quickly regained her composure. Despite this, upon seeing the current state of the children, a look of worry began to spread across her features; something that the other adults in the room quickly mirrored. None of them wanted to touch the children while they were still covered in their respective glows; considering what happened to the two that had a moment of contact with them. Although their postures and facial features relaxed a bit as it appeared that the children were not in any pain or discomfort.

After a few moments the snow white glow that had enveloped Luna began to recede back into her. As the aura receded, Luna's skin began to quickly become covered in a pattern of tiny scales, which quickly spread across her body, originating from the palm of her left hand. As the scales continued to spread across her body, her nails began to elongate and sharpen into small claws. The couple of teeth she had been missing quickly grew in and were sharpening to a very sharp point, like a mouth filled with tiny daggers a couple inches in length.

Her body repositioned itself on the carpet, laying flat on her stomach as the tip of a tail began to swiftly poke out the side of her snowflake patterned blanket. As her hair was receding into her scalp, two small horns of a very light shade of blue quickly sprouted on each side of her head, quickly growing to about 4 inches in length, easily poking out of her hair. Her face was starting to elongate as her eyes migrated to either side of her lengthening mouth, filled with now razor sharp teeth, as her nose shifted into nostrils at the end of her forming snout.

A disturbance in the blanket covering her back revealed that two wings were quickly growing, the solid edges were of the purest white, halfway along these growing protrusions, 4 others of the same color sprouted, growing out like the limbs of a fan between both parts of the one emerging from her back. The gaps between these were quickly covered by a thin membrane, a couple shades of blue darker then her horns. Her entire body was lengthening, particularly around her neck and growing tail, while her arms and legs morphed in a more draconic appearance. The scales covering the main portion of her body turned to a snow white color, while her claws, and the scales of her under belly turned the same color as the growing membranes of her wings.

As the changes finished, her eyes opened to reveal her silvery orbs now possessed a fairly dark blue slit pupil. She began glancing towards the boy off to her side that was going through a very similar change as she had just finished. Harry's changed features were very similar to Luna's, mainly just a difference in coloring and a slight difference in size, him being a tad smaller than her. The main portion of his scales were a dull gold in color, while his claws, and the membranes of his wings were a brighter shade of electric yellow. His horns were a darker yellow, as a shade of bright gold coated his underbelly. As he finished shifting, his eyes opened revealing now almost emerald orbs with a bright electric yellow slit pupil in them.

The two children now turned dragons stared at each other for a few moments, examining every detail of the other before they both jumped towards each other and began to play. Harry was about 6 feet long from snout to tail tip, while possessing a wingspan of a little over 5 feet when fully spread. Whereas Luna was 8 feet from snout to tail, with a 7 foot wingspan. While the adults tried to recover from their shock of what had transpired over the last minute.

"Can someone please tell me this is all a dream, and I did not see the kids change into dragons." Sirius questioned as he rubbed his eyes to make sure he was seeing was actually real.

"I don't think you're dreaming, not unless we're all having the same one." James answered, still not entirely sure of what just happened.

"Well, at least now we know what that elf meant earlier." Pandora commented as she was the first to fully recover from her shock. "Now we definitely can't tell anyone about this."

"I agree with her on that, now can we do something about the two dragons currently playing in my living room?" Lily commented as the others had about finished recovering from their reactions to the previous events. "Do you think they can even understand us? Harry?"

At the sound of his name being called the yellow dragon abruptly stopped playing with his slightly larger counterpart and looked in the direction of his name being called. " **Mama? Mama!** " The baby dragon almost yelled out excitedly as he jumped towards Lily, abruptly knocking her back into the couch she'd been sitting on.

"Did that dragon just speak english?" Sirius managed to get out while trying not to laugh too much.

."Yes he did Padfoot." James answered with a slight chuckle. "Harry, can you please get up off of mama now?"

" **Ok.** " he muttered out with a slightly depressed tone; his voice still sounding like that of a child, but with a slightly deep tone to it. He quickly cheered up as his eyes again caught sight of the other dragon in the room. " **Luna, play!** "

" _Ok._ " She replied, while preparing to be tackled by the ball of energy heading right for her. Her voice was calm and soothing, like it had an almost angelic tone to it. They quickly picked up where they had left off, and were quickly bouncing all over the living room.

"I think we just have to wait for them to tire themselves out." Pandora commented as a small sigh escaped her lips. "Once they are sleepy we can put them both down for a nap. Then we can try and do some research to see if we can find out anything about this."

"That could work, we can put them up in the nursery, then while they are sleeping, you Sirius, and Xenophilius can go to Potter Manor and see if there is anything in the library there. James and I shouldn't leave due to the fidelius, so we can stay here with the children; see if there might be something in the library here." Stated Lily. "Now we just have to wait for them to tucker themselves out."

It took about half an hour for the two dragons to tire themselves out. During which the 3 guys played a game of exploding snap while Lily and Pandora continued to chat with each other.

"Are you two ready to sleep?" Pandora inquired as she looked towards the two yawning dragons.

"Ya." They both responded between yawns. After a few more yawns the two children quickly changed back into their human forms, and started rubbing their eyes as if they were about to pass out.

"Then let's get you both up to the nursery for a nap." Lily calmly stated as she and Pandora picked up their respective child; and then proceeded to walk towards Harry's nursery. His nursery was a somewhat large room with the walls patterned in striped of red and gold, and a border of gryphons running along the top and bottom of the walls. There were various toys scattered across the room, with his crib over in the corner.

They both placed their child at either end of the crib, giving them a pillow, and making sure they were covered by their favorite blanket. Then they proceeded to give their child a quick peck on the forehead, wishing them sweet dreams as the children left the land of the living within moments. They then headed back down to the living room.

"It seems like the children have those dragons for their animagus forms, or something along those lines, at least that answers some questions for us." Said James as the women were entering the room.

"But I have never heard of there being a magical animagus, let alone a dragon." Sirius added.

"Another thing to add to our list to research." Xenophilius commented, earning a slight groan from Sirius in the process. "Anyways we're off to Potter Manor, we'll be back in a couple hours to and we can discuss our findings then."

After that Sirius started walking towards the front door, with the Lovegoods right behind him. James and Lily went to do their own research. Although even about 3 hours later, they had not made any progress.

"I'm going to go check on the kids; meanwhile can you go down to the kitchen and make us a snack? I'm starting to get hungry." Lily mentioned as she got up and left the library.

 **Outside the Potter's Cottage**

A lone cloaked figure was rapidly approaching the Potter's Cottage, yet didn't disturb a single flake of fallen snow that they were passed over. The gate suddenly opened as the figure got closer to the cottage before it continued towards the Potter's front door.

Meanwhile inside the cottage, James was down in the kitchen we he was notified to an unknown entry to the wards.

'How can anyone find us? The fidelius should have hid us from everyone who wasn't told.' He thought to himself as he readied his wand in his hand and headed towards the entryway.

Outside the cottage, the figure approached the locked door. With a quick flick of its wand, the door was stripped of any enchantments, granting passage into the cottage. He saw James blocking his path as he crossed the threshold.

"Stand aside, I would rather not end an old pureblood line this evening. I am only interested in killing the boy." The cloaked figure rasped out in a dark ominous tone that sent shivers down James's spine.

"Voldemort, you won't touch a hair on his head, even if it's the last thing I do." James commanded as he steeled himself against the Dark Lord. He quickly swished his wand several times as every item in the entryway started floating in the air, and flew towards Voldemort. Each item transfiguring into a large razor sharp spear, speed forward with the intent of impaling Voldemort.

"Foolish." The Dark Lord commented as he flicked his wand, summoning a shockwave that shattered every single transfigured spear as they came into contact. The shockwave continued down the entryway, tearing up the floor, damaging the walls, and creating a wave of debris in its wake as it all rushed towards James.

He managed to dive into the living room, moments before the tsunami of debris passed the room's entrance. Thinking for a quick second, James rushed deeper into the room, waving his wand as he moved, transfiguring every piece of furniture in the room in a large pride of powerful lions; all ready to attack the first thing that entered the room. With another few waves of his wand, everything hanging of the walls levitated into the air, transfiguring into daggers, and flying into the kitchen.

Voldemort entered the room as the last dagger had passed out of sight into the kitchen, causing every single lion in the room to leap towards him, claws out ready to rend him to ribbons. With a simple wave of his wand, earth spikes rose up impaling every lion mid-leap, while a wall rose up out of the floor, blocking every dagger as they attempted to strike him from behind. With another wave of his wand, the previously stopped lions were retransfigured into iron stakes that rushed towards James.

"Fulguris" He chanted as a bolt of lightning emerged from the tip of his wand, connecting with the nearest stake, before jumping to the next closest one. This repeated as the lightning jumped from stake to stake before heading straight towards James.

Realizing that he didn't have room to dodge, James waved his wand instantly raising a thick stone wall in front of him in an attempt to prolong his life. The lightning bolt collided with the wall a moment later, tearing through large parts of it. What was left of the wall didn't stand long as the lightning enhanced staked made quick work of tearing through the wall. They quickly impaled the wall on both sides of James. The arcs of lightning that were connecting the stakes followed moments behind the stakes as they binded James to the wall, instantly killing him. Finished with James, Voldemort moved out of the living room, up the stairs and proceeded towards the nursery.

"Stand aside girl, I only came for the boy." He commanded.

"You won't touch him!" She loudly retorted with a fire in her eyes as she moved between Voldemort and the crib, summoning her wand to her hand to defend the children from him.

"Foolish." He chided as a pale green bolt of lightning erupted from his wand, striking Lily in the chest before she realized what had happened. She fell to the ground, dead before she came in contact with the floor.

The sound of Lily yelling caused the children to wake up, quickly sitting up; they peered out the side of the crib as the cloaked figure approached them from where Lily had fallen.

As he approached the crib, he raised his wand and released another killing curse, intending to strike down the last of the Potters. As the curse struck Harry's forehead, much to Voldemort's surprise and shock the curse rebounded off the toddler, striking him in the chest before he could react. As the rebounded curse impacted Voldemort, a shockwave of magic tore out, instantly destroying all the protections around the Potter's cottage. While a smaller shockwave spread out into the nursery, knocking the children into the side of the crib, causing them to fall unconscious.

"My, my you two certainly are interesting ones." A woman in the corner of the room commented as she appeared in the corner of the room, and instantly noticed the glowing snowflake on Luna's left hand, and the glowing lightning bolt on Harry's forehead.

"Your futures are going to be very interesting children, until we meet again." She added before disappearing as quickly as she had appeared moments before.

* * *

AN: Just a quick couple of comments. Regarding elves, I have a couple of ideas but they probably wont come into play much until later in the story; just suffice to say wizards tend to fear elves sometimes more than Voldemort, not necessarily because they are dark/evil; but more so because they are powerful, mysterious, and wizards know very little about them.

On the children, the change to dragon form was detailed for the first time, it wont be like that for the rest of them; I just felt the first one was special and wanted to be descriptive. Continuing that, I haven't seen many of fanfics where Harry is a dragon animagus, so I wanted to add my own. I'm planning on them being on the stronger side of their age group, but not much more than that; they wont be able to take on adult wizards anytime soon. Also I want to do a Harry/Luna pairing eventually, but currently I feel I can't write it well enough so for now it is a childhood friendship. Once I feel comfortable enough, I will try to write them as a pairing; even then any romantic stuff between them wouldn't happen till 4th year or so, and the progression of their relationship would be gradual, and hopefully realistic.

On Voldemort, he is going to be stronger than he was in canon probably, definitely more sane. At times he didn't seem like a true villain, so I hope I can correct that in my story. Also I don't plan on doing any bashing in this story.

I have the general ideas for the next chapter but it will take a bit to write so I'm hoping to have it done sometime next week. Continuing off of that, my free time can fluctuate at times so updates may be a bit sporadic. I'll try to keep chapter progress updated on my profile.


	2. Chapter 2: Consequences and new family

AN: The first chapter got a better reception then I expected to be honest. I didn't expect the first chapter to get 13 favs and 14 follows, or 2 reviews. Thanks to everyone who faved/followed, and a big thank you to the two who reviewed.

Dragonladysally: Thx for being my first review. The elves in this story are like phoenixes, minus the whole symbols of light thing. They are very mysterious and the wizarding world knows little about them.

Percy Jackson7: Glad you like the story so far, the dragon bit was a major part of why I wanted to write this in the first place. I hope you continue to like the story.

This chapter wraps up a lot of the loose ends from last chapter. It ended up a bit longer than I expected but I think it turned out pretty well. And thanks to Fangirling Way Past My Bedtime for betaing the chapter. Enjoy.

* * *

 **Godric's Hollow**

As the magical shock wave tore through the enchantments protecting the Potter's cottage, a golden dome became visible over the building before decaying into dust. After a few moments the snowy landscape of Godric's Hallow returned once more to its former silence. It remained this way for another couple of moments before there was a resounding crack in the air. An old man with long white hair and an even longer beard apparated several yards from the now silent cottage.

'The wards are already down, hopefully I'm not too late.' The old man thought to himself as he rushed into the cottage with surprising speed. His eyes fell upon the fresh trail of destruction through the first floor of the cottage. He followed the trail towards the living room where his eyes fell upon James in the corner of the room, a wave of sorrow began to envelop him. 'I am too late.'

He took a moment to regain control of his emotions as he continued to survey the damage in the living room. After which he then proceeded to head up the stairs and towards the nursery where he felt another) large amount of residual magic; not as much as downstairs, but more than enough to register as potentially dangerous. He readied his wand as he entered the nursery, his sight immediately falling upon Lily's motionless corpse, and then spreading out seeing the light damage around the room.

'At least she died painlessly, and from what appeared to be the after effects of a Fulguris spell; James most likely died instantly and felt minimal to no pain.' He thought as a combination of relief and a fair amount of anguish was felt. After a few moments he noticed the two children lying unconscious against the side of the crib. Relief quickly replaced any lingering negative feelings. 'Thankfully, not all was lost.'

"Most curious…" He muttered out as he examined the rest of the room, mainly the lack of Voldemort's body, the lightning shaped scar on Harry's forehead, and that there was a snow haired child laying next to Harry.

"I wonder…." He started muttering to himself again, but stopped when he felt the presence of two other wizards who had apparated just outside the cottage. Already having his wand out, he quickly, but cautiously, headed downstairs and towards the entryway to see who has just arrived. He was ready to react at a moments notice, until he recognized two of his former students and allowed himself to relax. "Pandora, Xenophilius what are you doing here?"

"We were here a couple of hours ago so Luna could meet and play with Harry, after a while they got tired so we decided to leave her here for a while so she could take a nap. Lily and James were fine with it, so we went and did some errands in the meantime." Xenophilius answered. "Professor, how come you're here at this time of night?"

"I came when I was alerted to a disturbance in the wards." He replied, quickly taking notice of the wave of visible terror that rapidly spread across the Lovegood's visages. "The children are safe, just unconscious in the crib in Harry's nursery. However it appears Voldemort was told about the Potter's hiding location." He paused, took a breath, and carried on. Both James and Lily were killed. and Voldemort's body is nowhere to be found."

The Lovegoods were shocked into a state of silence. Dumbledore, understanding their reaction gave them a few moments to process what he had just told them, before gesturing for them to follow him as he lead them towards the nursery. After entering the nursery, Pandora recovered slightly quicker than her husband; the tenseness in both of their postures relaxed a bit as they realized their daughter was truly unharmed.

"What happened here?" Xenophilius was the first ask.

"From what I can gather, James confronted Voldemort when he entered the house. However James, while tremendously skilled in transfiguration, was no match for him, and was quickly defeated. Though from the large amount of magical residue in the entryway and living room, James fought him to his last breath. After which Voldemort came into the nursery and killed Lily with the killing curse; which he then attempted to cast it on Harry, however it rebounded back onto Voldemort." He explained, noticing the slight looks of confusion on the other two in the room.

"But the cottage was under the Fidelius; so the only way for him to know they were here would be for Sirius to tell him. However I know that Sirius would never betray his best friend like that; they have always been like brothers." Xenophilius mentioned stating his clear confusion.

"And there is the first conundrum. My heart is telling me that Sirius would never betray James; while my brain is telling me that is what must have happened." The old wizard sighed. "For now I suggest we track down Sirius and give him a chance to explain himself before the ministry gets a hold of him or he'll be carted off to Azkaban. If that were to happen; then even I wouldn't be able to do much for him, currently."

"What happened to You-Know-Who? I don't see a body or anything; you said he fired off a Killing Curse at Harry, but it rebounded. How does that happen?" Pandora questioned. "And what is going to happen to Harry now? Who will take care of him with his parents dead? As well as Sirius's questionable future."

"On the first one I have a hypothesis. Lily's last act was to protect her son, dying for him out of love. Her love created a protection for Harry against Voldemort, and that is why the Killing Curse rebounded on him when he tried to use it on Harry The scar on his forehead is proof enough of that, he is basically the boy-who-lived. As for where he goes now is a bit complicated. Just because Voldemort is gone, that doesn't mean the same for his followers; I'm sure there are many that will want to avenge their fallen master. As such he will need protection. The strongest form of protection he can have is what Lily left to him. " The old wizard explained, before taking a momentary pause to let the Lovegoods take in everything he had said.

"Continuing off that there is only one place that Harry can go, however it isn't ideal. He has to be sent to Petunia, Lily's sister; it is the only way that her protection will remain strong enough. It would also be for the best if he grew up away from the inevitable fame that will accompany tonight's events here in our world." Dumbledore continued as his lips formed into a slight frown; taking notice as the Lovegood's features quickly mimicked his own, albeit with a bit more emotion showing.

"But Petunia, and her husband Vernon want nothing to do with magic! Who knows what they will do to Harry if he is sent to live with them!" Pandora argued angrily.

"I am well aware of that; however he needs to be protected, and this is currently the best option." He replied, his frown remaining unchanged.

"Professor, would you mind if Pandora and I looked after Harry? At least for a little while? Pandora is his godmother, so she has at least some claim of guardianship over him." Xenophilius added as his frown changed into a slight smile.

"I suppose that would be fine for the time being while things are being sorted out. However Harry's safety from Voldemort's followers is the first priority, as such he will likely have to sent to live with his aunt and uncle in the muggle world." Dumbledore replied, taking note of the frowning Lovegoods in front of him.

"For now we can agree to disagree on that, let's focus on finding Sirius first." Pandora commented, receiving a nod of approval from her husband.

"I suppose, for now you both can take the children back to the rook while I deal with this and locate Sirius." Dumbledore finished, noticing that the Lovegoods paused for a moment before nodding in agreement. After which they each picked up one of the unconscious children before apparating to their home. 'Sirius have you truly fallen from the light? Or am I missing something?'

 **Ottery St. Catchpole**

The Lovegood couple apparated several yards away from their house. They were in a grassy, snow covered field that surrounded a lone hill upon which stood their abode. The home was aptly named the Rook, as it looked like a giant version of the chess piece. The childrenwere still sleeping in their arms as they walked towards the stairway leading to their front door; each taking note of the snow covered bushes on either side of the stairway.

They entered into their half-circular living room. There was a spiral staircase in the far corner of the room, a three person couch and a few chairs centered around the middle of the room, and various nick-nacks littering the walls. They proceeded up the staircase to the third floor where Luna's nursery was located. The nursery was another half circular room, the walls were a pattern of bronze and blue stripes, with a row of bronze eagles lining the top and bottoms. There was a large crib against the far wall, while some of Luna's various toys were scattered around the rest of the room; while the ceiling was like a moving painting of clear, starry night sky.

"I'll stay here with the children, while you go and retrieve Harry's belongings from his nursery. We can figure out our next step after you return." Pandora stated as she put Luna into the crib, while Xenophilius did the same with Harry.

"Sound's good to me." he commented while walking out of the nursery.

'Hmm, I should probably make this room larger.' She thought, and with a quick swish of her wand, the inside of the room nearly doubled in size.'No matter what, Harry will not be sent to Lily's sister; at least Xenophilius isn't opposed to the idea of Harry living with us. More immediately though the issue of Sirius needs to be sorted out; I refuse to believe he has betrayed us.'

Xenophilius returned about half an hour later, after arriving in the nursery he pulled out a tic-tac sized trunk; with a quick wave of his wand it returned to its normal size on the floor. Then with a series of waves, a couple of flicks and a swish of his wand the lid of the trunk opened and the items that were from Harry's nursery began to float out. Pandora chimed in with a couple flicks of her wand quickly repainting the walls of half the nursery from their original design to what was in Harry's nursery originally. His crib floated to against the wall while his toys proceeded to organize themselves in the corner on what was now Harry's side of the room.

"Come on Harry, let's put you in your own crib." Pandora chimed as she picked Harry out of Luna's crib. He had been tense since being put down in Luna's crib, but instantly relaxed in Pandora's loving embrace. She held him for a moment before setting him down in his own crib, giving him a small peck on the forehead and wishing him sweet dreams; then doing the same to her own daughter. The Lovegoods stood at the entry to the nursery for a moment before heading downstairs to the living room.

"You want him to stay here." Xenophilius calmly stated with a knowing tone.

"He just had his family torn away from him; and any chance at a quiet life along with it. If he goes to Petunia, then there most likely goes his chance for a happy childhood as well. He has already been through enough, we should let him be put through more." She answered, a somber look on her face. "I can understand why Dumbledore wants to send him there, it is where his protection will be the greatest; but I don't think that protection should come at the cost of his happiness."

"I will admit I hadn't expected you to get attached to him so quickly." Her husband replied with a slight chuckle. "However I would be lying if I said I haven't become attached to him myself. Taking everything into consideration, you being his godmother, who knows what will happen with Sirius, him and Luna seem to get along great; and not to mention the whole dragon thing, we really only have one option.

"However." He continued, cutting off his wife in the process. "We should still take a few days to think this over, find out what is going on with Sirius, and figure out if this is really best for us and Harry; or at least give our brains some time to fully understand what our hearts are saying. Then we can figure out how to convince Dumbledore. Preferably without having to tell him about the whole dragon thing."

"I guess you're right, lets sleep on it. Then we can figure out what to do about Sirius in the morning." She replied as she let out a slight yawn, at that the two proceeded up the stairs and off to bed.

 **Flashback: Potter Manor a bit more than a half hour earlier**

"Anyone find anything?" Sirius sighed out in exasperation, and quickly receiving a negative nod from the other two in the library. "We have been looking for hours now and we haven't found anything. I say we call it a night."

"It is getting late, so we probably won't find anything tonight even if we keep looking for a while; and besides Luna will probably be waking up soon." Pandora added as her and her husband stood up.

The three adults then proceeded to exit the library, they continued walking down a hallway lined with the portraits of past members of the Potter family, and several doors that lead to various rooms in the manor. After reaching the end of the hallway they entered into the second floor of the grand foyer and walked along the path towards the stairway down to the first floor. A decorative wooden railing separated them from the three story entry way of the manor. A massive candle lit chandelier was hanging from the ceiling in middle of the second and third floors; centered between the descending staircase in front of them and the ascending staircase behind them. After walking down the stairs, as they were on their way out of the entry way, a small podium off to the side of the room quickly started flashing red.

"The cottage is being attacked!" Sirius yelled as pure unadulterated terror instantly spread across his face.

"WHAT?!" The Lovegood's yelled in unison as their faces quickly mirrored their companion's. They looked at each other, and then panicked even more. "LUNA!" At that outburst, all three adults rushed towards the entrance of the manor like the Hounds of Hades were a step behind them.

"Get to the cottage, and don't let anyone know we were here. I promise I'll explain everything later." Sirius rushed out before disappearing with a crack of apparition.

"You'd better." Xenophilius muttered out before glancing over to his wife, who with a quick nod confirmed she was thinking the same thing. A couple moments later the couple exited the front door of the manor and apparated to the cottage.

 **With Sirius**

Sirius appeared in front of a small house, in a village about fifty miles from Godric's Hollow. The house was a single story, with a pathway leading from the sidewalk up towards a red oak front door. On either side of the door were decently sizes square 4-pane glass windows poking holes in the bricks of the front of the house. The pointed roof was covered in red tiles while a single chimney stack poked out of one side.

Sirius speed walked towards the front door with his wand at the ready, as he got closer to the door he fired a silent Bombarda at the oak door. The door was blasted into a thousand pieces, sending shrapnel and splinters raining into the living room of the small house. The sound of the explosion alerted all the nearby residents of the village. By the time anyone got to see where the explosion originated from, Sirius had already disappeared into the house.

"PETER! Come out I know you're here!" Sirius bellowed as he quickly cast a couple of Lumos spells to light the entirety of the house. The room was sparsely decorated, besides the debris from the blasted in door; there was a sofa and a couple of chairs circling the center of the room. There was a bookcase of in the corner, and a few items littered the walls, a couple more were against the wall on the floor; having fallen down moments prior. As the house lit up, he noticed a tiny rat run behind the sofa out of the corner of his eye.

"Peter, I know thats you. You always hid here whenever something happened." Sirius stated with pure fury illuminating his eyes. He channeled his rage into his magic as another silent Bombarda flew out of the wand destroying the couch, knocking the rat against the wall. With a quick flick of his wand, the rat shifted into a short plump man in tattered clothes slumped against the wall. With another swish of his wand, a weak hex flew at the downed man, causing him to jolt up with a yelp in pain.

"Why Peter, WHY?!" Sirius commanded as he held the portly man at wand point. Tears threatening to spill out of his eyes. His face was a mix of sorrow, pain, regret and rage, his eyes mirroring that as they showed a chaotic storm of emotion brewing right below the surface, threatening to erupt at any moment. "James, Lily and Harry were attacked tonight, most likely by Voldemort himself. Do you know what that means Peter?! DO YOU?!"

"Of course I do!" The slumped down man replied back in a loud tone, his face a mixture of pain and sorrow. "But I had no choice, the Dark Lord found out I was the secret keeper, and would have killed me unless I told him."

"Why did you betray us?!" Sirius yelled in a slightly lower tone, his emotions tittering over the edge as the events of the night threatened to overwhelm him. "Our friends and my godson are most likely dead, all because you are nothing but a coward who wanted to save his own skin!"

"I had no choice, I was always hidden in your shadows. I will never be as smart as Remus, or as strong as you and James, or as brave as any of you." He yelled back, the turmoil clear in his face and eyes. "I am too cowardly to choose their lives over mine, I had no other choice."

"You had a choice, you just chose the easy way out!" Sirius snapped back, his emotional stability hanging on by a few threads. "Now they are most likely dead, and it is all YOUR FAULT!"

"This never would have happened if you had just been the secret keeper in the first place!" Peter snapped back. This snapped the last remaining thread that was holding Sirius together emotionally. After hearing his former friend say that, everything burst forth, as he collapsed to the ground, tears pouring from his eyes. Lost in his storm of emotions he was momentarily unable to process what was happening around him. After taking a moment to collect himself, Peter took Sirius's wand, which had fallen to the ground when he had the emotional breakdown; and fired a silent Bombarda into the kitchen.

 **Outside, moments prior**

The house was in a mostly muggle village, and after the explosion alerted many of the residents, they all started crowding around the house as their curiosity got the better of them. Several witches and wizards lived in the village as well, but were staying back more, as they had realized that a Bombarda was used on the door.

A couple moments after the Bombarda had been used on the door, a team of obliviators showed up, and since offensive magic had been detected, a team of Aurors was also dispatched as a precaution. They were currently all a ways away from the house, cautiously approaching it, when inside the house the Bombarda had just been fired into the gas powered kitchen.

When the blasting curse struck the gas powered stove it blew up violently, blowing out most of the wall the stove was sitting against and set fire to most of the kitchen. However the stove had been on and drawing gas from the main line that ran underneath the street outside; so when the stove blew up, it caused the gas line to catch fire which spread to the main line running under the street outside. So a moment after the stove blew up, a second larger explosion tore apart half the house; causing several nearby houses caught fire as flaming debris flew away from the source of the explosion.

When the first explosion struck, out of instinct the obliviator and auror teams each cast shield charms to defend themselves; as did the several witches and wizards in the crowd. A moment after the shield charms were raised, a third explosion from the main gas line tore up the street for a block in either direction of the house. Instantly killing every muggle in the crowd in the street that had gathered to see what was happening inside the house. The explosion caught two of the wizards that were closest to the house, and knocked back the rest of the magicals from the explosion's shockwave. Flaming debris caused most of the houses lining the streets to catch on fire, as well as many of the houses up to two streets over.

As the ministry wizards, as well as the town's magical residents were recovering from being blown off their feet; no one noticed a rat that ran out of the house and into the entrance of a sewer that had been opened by the main gas line exploding. One of the aurors was the first to recover, realizing that the situation had worsened drastically he sent a messenger patronus to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement (DMLE) for reinforcements to control the fire. By the time the message was sent, the remaining witches and wizards regained their senses and got to work trying to control the fire until help arrived.

It was a few minutes before several squads of ministry personnel showed up to help put out the fires that had now spread to over a hundred homes throughout the immediate area. Once the reinforcements showed up, it only took about 15 minutes for them to put out the remaining fires; by which time a couple more squads of obliviators had showed up and were quickly rewriting the memories of the surviving muggles.

As the obliviators were doing their job, the original auror team on site went to investigate the house where the magic was first detected. They walked through the doorway and into the charred living room that still had remains of the door and sofa scattered around the room. They quickly noticed that a man with black hair was lying against the wall unconscious, with his wand beside him on the floor. On of the aurors approached him, he quickly identified the man, and then picked up the wand and cast Prior Incantato on it.

"I think I determined the cause of the explosions." He stated as the three other aurors in the room rushed over to where he was. The auror then pointed to the currently unconscious man. "This is Sirius Black, and what I'm guessing is his wand, which with a Prior Incantato revealed that the last three spells it cast were Bombardas. One on the door, another on a sofa that was in this room; and then the third into the kitchen which caused the first and subsequently second and third explosions."

"I interviewed a couple of the wizards outside earlier once the fire was sufficiently contained and found out that this is the residence of Peter Pettigrew. From what I remember from school him and Sirius Black were friends, so why would Black force entry into his friend's house?" Another auror added. " Although I'm not seeing Peter Pettigrew around here." At which point the four split up and searched the house.

"I found something." The auror who identified Sirius called out from the kitchen a minute later. The other three aurors rushed into the kitchen, taking note of the finger lying on the ground against the wall.

"Did anyone else find anything?" He asked, after receiving three negative nods, he continued. "I think this is all that's left of Peter Pettigrew. It seems like Sirius Black broke in here to kill his friend, but why?"

"We can figure out the why later. Right now we have him on murder of Peter Pettigrew, and causing the death of two other wizards and at least a few dozen muggles. We're taking him back to headquarters; and we should do so before muggles show up to investigate this." One of the aurors commented. At that they cleaned up any remaining evidence in the house, took Sirius and his wand, and apparated back to the Ministry.

 **Godric's Hollow**

The Lovegoods had left about five minutes ago, leaving Dumbledore to ponder on the events of the night, and of its potential consequences. He was lost in thought till the sound of someone apparating returned him to reality; although he quickly relaxed when he seen who it was. A tall man with a head of grey hair, he was also sporting a fake leg, and a magical eye over his right eye socket.

"Albus, why am I not surprised you're here." the new arrival commented, a neutral look adorning his features. "Mind telling me what happened here?"

"Hello Alastor, I was wondering when someone from the ministry would show up here." He answered with a slight chuckle. "Voldemort found out the Potter's location and killed James and Lily. However when he attempted to kill Harry, the Killing Curse rebounded on him. Harry is staying with his godmother for now."

"But wasn't Sirius the secret keeper?" Moody replied as a frown formed on his face.

"He was, which is what I'm conflicted over. My heart is telling me that Sirius would never betray James, however that is the only conclusion I can think of that makes sense." The aged wizard replied with as a small sigh escaped his lips.

"I can see your cornundrum; however, since you're here at the scene, we're going back to the ministry to try and sort all this out." The aged auror replied, after receiving a quick nod from his friend, they both apparated to the ministry.

 **Ministry of Magic, Head of DMLE's office**

It had been around half an hour since the attack on the Potters. Currently Dumbledore, Moody, and Bartemius Crouch Sr. were in his office waiting for someone to show up.

"I apologize for being late, but the meeting with a few department heads ran longer than expected." Stated a thin, brown haired woman of medium stature.

"No worries Minister. I'll start with explaining the attack on the Potter's…" Dumbledore went on to explain Voldemort's attack on the cottage, the death of James and Lily, and ultimately his defeat at the hands of Harry.

"This is a great victory for our side, only if it didn't have to come at such a cost." The Minister commented with a slightly somber look plastering her face. "But how did You-Know-Who find them in the first place? Didn't they go into hiding?"

"They did, they were under a Fidelius at their cottage in Godric's Hollow. Sirius Black was the secret keeper." He answered, that last bit coming out as a frown overcame his face.

"So Sirius Black betrayed our side to You-Know-Who, and is clearly responsible for the death of Lily and James Potter." The head of the DMLE stated with confidence in his tone.

"That is the only logical conclusion I can think of, however I feel that Sirius wouldn't betray James and Lily like that." Albus commented, still frowning slightly.

"Despite what you think Chief Warlock, the evidence says otherwise, and that is what matters. Unless new evidence comes to light that points to a different conclusion. Then Sirius Black is now wanted for treason, and causing the deaths of James and Lily Potter." The Minister stated, her tone making it clear that there was to be no more discussion on it. At that moment there was a knock on the office door.

"I'm sorry to disturb your meeting sir, but I thought you would want to see this report as soon as possible." An auror nervously commented as he entered the room, handed his boss the report, and then left the room as quickly as he came.

"That rookie was onto something." Alastor commented as his magical eye skimmed the report in Crouch's hands. After hearing that Crouch waved his wand causing the report to read itself aloud to four people in the room; detailing the gas line explosion, and the findings in Peter Pettigrew's house.

"The charges on Sirius Black are now the murder of Peter Pettigrew, treason, causing the death of James and Lily Potter, along with two other yet to be identified wizards, and 53 muggles." Crouch summarized. "He is either going to be kissed, or a life sentence in Azkaban."

"I admit I'm curious as to how a simple blasting curse can reduce someone to only a finger, with nothing else remaining." Albus commented with a small twinkle developing in his eye.

"I'm curious about that as well." Moody commented, a slight smirk developing on his face.

"Be that as it may, the current evidence is solid for his crimes. As such Sirius Black will be sent to Azkaban to serve a life sentence; however if adequate new evidence comes to light then his sentence will be reevaluated at that time." The Minister stated with a finishing tone."Now changing topics, what of young Harry Potter?"

"He is currently staying with his godmother Pandora Lovegood, along with her husband Xenophilius and their daughter Luna." The chief warlock answered.

"That is suitable; as his godmother, Mrs. Lovegood would be the next to receive guardianship of him. I will have the paperwork officialized within the next day or so. Now if that is all, I have to get a missive sent to the daily Prophet, and with any luck it will make the morning edition. I bid you good night gentlemen." the Minister finished as she walked out of the office. At that Dumbledore and Moody noded to each other, bid Crouch a good evening, and then left his office.

 **The Rook**

The following morning the Lovegoods were in their living room, about to continue their discussion from last night, when the wards alerted them to a visitor.

"Good morning professor, please come in I just made tea." Mrs. Lovegood greeted as she welcomed her former headmaster into the house.

"Good morning to you as well Pandora, Xenophilius." He replied back as he entered the living room. "I have both good and bad news, but more on that in a minute; how are the children?"

"They are fine, been sleeping since last night." Xenophilius replied. "Now on the topic of Harry, we decided we want to have guardianship of him. Pandora is his godmother, so in the current circumstances, his guardianship would fall to her next. And we became very attached to him, he also gets along with our Luna very well."

"That's good." Albus replied with a smile, to the slight confusion of the Lovegoods as they recalled their conversation from the previous night.

"By order of the Minister of Magic, you both are now the official guardians of Harry." he continued, earning a look of surprise and slight shock from both Lovegoods. He then went on to fill them in on the conversation regarding Sirius last night. As he informed them of everything, they experienced a small gauntlet of emotions.

"Not everything adds up, and I still don't believe that Sirius would betray us to You-Know-Who. Is there anything we can do for him at this point?" Pandora questioned.

"I agree with you on that; however by now he is already at Azkaban. And unless a miracle happens to cast reasonable doubt on the current evidence there is little we can do." He answered in a slightly sad tone. At that he got up and left the couple to ponder in peace.

"Don't worry, we will be able to help Sirius eventually." Xenophilius stated as he comforted his wife.

"I know, but at least we have Harry as a part of our family now." She replied as a smile spread across her face. As if hearing his name called, Harry woke up and started crying, his crying caused Luna to wake up and immediately join in.

"Let's go take care of our children." He happily commented as a similar smile broke out across his face.

"Our children." She repeated, her face never losing its gleaming smile. At that they headed towards the nursery.

* * *

AN: After last chapter I wanted to end this one on a happy note. On chapter length, they will probably fluctuate a bit, but I will try to not have any chapters shorter than the first one. I want to aim for around 5-6k for chapter length, give or take a little.

If you haven't realized yet, Luna was born a year earlier than in canon; so she is about 6 months older than Harry, as such they will be in the same year at Hogwarts. I did this mainly to keep things a bit simpler for when I get to writing that point. On a side note, I haven't decided if im going to do any partial transformations or not yet, probably but not 100% sure yet.

Regarding next chapter, I don't want to jump into the Hogwarts stuff right away, I want to have a chapter or two that takes place before it. But they will be a bit trickier for me to write probably so the next chapter probably won't be out for a week and a half or so. I'll try to get it out sooner, maybe sometime over next weekend but it depends on how the writing goes. Like before I'll keep story progress updated on my profile.

I also want to say thanks again to everyone who showed their support for the last chapter, please keep it up. It really means a lot to me, and helps motivate me write.


	3. Chapter 3: Birthday surprises

This chapter took a little longer than expected, but I think it turned out decently overall. Originally this was going to be the first part of chapter 3, but it kind of ran away from me as I was writing and got a lot longer then I initially expected. I will admit this chapter is a little odd, but it helps sets up some stuff that I can have some fun with later. Next chapter will help tie some stuff together, and explain some of the differences between this story and canon so there's that to look forward to.

shadytheumbreon: Glad you liked it, and they are going to be childhood friends, and I plan on them as a pairing eventually.

Someone: Glad you like it. And no, Harry won't act like a snobby pureblood; he will get some exposure to the muggle world before Hogwarts, but not for a little while yet.

Thanks to everyone who is supporting this fic so far, and please continue to do so. Also thanks to Fangirling Way Past My Bedtime for betaing the chapter.

* * *

 **The Rook**

It was a calm February morning near Ottery St. Catchpole; a freshly fallen layer of snow coated the landscape as the sun rose up over the horizon. In the distance rested a small hill with the Rook residing at its peak, coated in snow and almost blending in with the surrounding lands. It was here that Harry Potter now resided with his adoptive family the Lovegoods; who were getting ready to celebrate his best friend's birthday.

Despite it being just past the crack of dawn, the adults of the Lovegood household had already been up for a while preparing for the day's festivities. Xenophilius was in the living room, rearranging the furniture, getting decorations on the wall, and having the small pile of presents present in the corner for after the birthday girl woke up. Meanwhile Pandora was in the kitchen making a dragon shaped birthday cake by hand; while it would have been quicker to create one with the help of magic, it just wouldn't feel the same, her husband agreed with her.

While the adults were preparing downstairs, upstairs the two children were still fast asleep, barely disturbed by the sun's awakening. As it continued to rise in the morning sky, more and more of its light was directed towards young Harry's face. Serving as his daily alarm clock he slowly opened his eyes, taking in the details of the room. The room had changed significantly from the nursery it had been; the two still split the room down the middle. Turning down their parents every time it was even hinted at if they wanted separate rooms.

Where there cribs once stood now small individual beds now took their places. Harry's was a small twin size, its body covered in red with patterns of orange lightning bolts racing along its side; his pillows and sheets had the same pattern albeit in reversed color scheme. Luna's was of a similar design, the bed adorned in bronze and littered with blue snowflakes; while taking a note from Harry's bed, her pillows and sheets had the same reversed style color scheme. The walls had remained unchanged, however the carpet not so much; on the boy's side the carpet was a thin electric yellow, while on the other side of the room it was an icy blue. Their respective collections of toys had grown considerably over time, although Harry's were scattered mostly throughout his side of the room, Luna's were mostly tucked away in the corner.

As he finished opening his eyes, he slowly got out of bed and started to stretch for a minute, loosening himself after a long night's sleep. After another couple of seconds, his eyes suddenly opened fully as he remembered what day it was; a second later he had already raced across the room and was frantically jumping up and down at the foot of his best friend's bed. At which point he quickly started yelling out "Luna!" with every bounce; and to her slight annoyance, he continued this until she answered him, alerting him to the fact that he had succeeded in waking her.

"I'm awake." She slowly answered him as she rubbed her eyes. A slight tone of annoyance was present in her young voice, although not as much as one would expect after being woken up just after dawn by a jumping ball of energy. She waited for him to settle down before continuing. "Yes Harry?"

"Do you know what today is?" He quickly blurted out, unable to remain still or contain his excitement. Her features remained in a slightly confused state as she tried to figure out was so special about the day that her best friend would be so hyper about. After a moment of thinking, her mouth quickly spread into a wide smile; upon seeing this Harry's face lit up like a christmas tree. He instantly crossed the span of the bed embracing her in a tight hug. "Happy Birthday!"

"Thank you Harry, now can you please let go of me?" She stated after a couple of moments, barely able to contain her enthusiasm. After another couple of seconds he complied with her wishes and let go, a massive grin still dominating his face. "Why are you grinning like that?"

"Can we please show them today? After you open your presents of course." He answered, the grin never fading from his face. "The look on their faces will be really funny."

"I guess, they will find out sooner or later; this way it can be a surprise." She replied much to his enjoyment. "But we will do it after presents and cake."

"Fine." He agreed with a slight pout, however he didn't want to get between Luna and her cake and have a repeat of last year. By this point the adults were finished setting up downstairs, and had just called them to come down. Luna's face more so than Harry's lit up with emotion at the sound of that, and quickly rushed down towards the living.

"Happy Birthday Luna!" Her parents excitedly yelled as they spotted her coming down the stairs with Harry quickly in tow. She embraced her parents in a tight hug, Harry following quickly behind her, and joining the Lovegoods in their family hug. They let go of each other after a few moments, Luna abruptly dived into her pile of presents, much to the others amusement while they each took a seat on the living room couch, waiting for the birthday girl to pick out her first present. Over the next half hour, they watched her go through opening each of her gifts; after finishing with those, she rushed to her parents, rapidly firing of a series of "thank you's" as pure joy radiated off her tiny frame.

However it was after Pandora went into the kitchen and came out with a large birthday cake, that her daughter's joy almost went supernova. Luna started salivating at the sight as the boys held her back from jumping into it head first. Pandora set the cake on a table off to the side of the living room. it was a large vanilla cake topped off in icy blue frosting; "Happy birthday Luna" was also written in the frosting in the center of the cake, encircled by six candles. The boys let go of the birthday girl the moment the cake had been set down, and by the next one she was already on top of it blowing out her candles. As the candles were blown out, the cake cut itself into several pieces, with a paper plate appearing underneath each one.

Luna proceeded to tear into her first piece of cake like she had been starved for a month, the others in the room each grabbed a plate and quickly took a seat on the couch. By the time each of them had finished their first piece, Luna was polishing off her third, although to be fair she probably had half a piece worth all over her clothes and face. The cake was gone after another twenty minutes, Harry managing to have 4 pieces while both of the adults managed to save 3 from Luna's hunger as she ate the remaining ⅔ of the cake.

"I think I ate too much." She muttered out sheepishly as she was laid out in the middle of the living room, her stomach filled to almost cartoonish proportions. The others in the room greeted that with a chuckle and a slight roll of the eyes; after that Harry went over and whispered something in her ear. Her smile turned into a bit of a grin as she listened to him, after a moment she was up and standing, and heading towards the stairs with Harry quickly in tow. Curiosity getting the better of them, the two adults followed them down the stairs towards the basement.

The stairway descended along the side of a large open space, from the tops of the walls, the ceiling curved into a pointed arch supporting the house and ground above. The inside of the room was a lot larger than it was originally as it had been expanded magically by Pandora and Xenophilius, as a space for Harry and Luna to play in their dragon forms away from where anyone would see them. The room opened to a space spanning almost 75 feet in width and nearly 250 feet in length on the inside, the archway that formed the ceiling rose up to around 25 feet at its peak, but only about 10 feet at its base. There were a few things sparsely located along the walls, most notably a large dresser against a far wall. The two adults entered the room to see that the children had already shifted to their dragon forms and had started chasing each other around the room.

"Is it just me, or have they gotten smaller?" Pandora questioned out loud, the confused look on her husband's face showed he was wondering the same thing. The two dragons instantly stopped playing, clearly having heard the question, a small fanged grin forming in their mouths. Both dragon measured about 15 feet from snout to tail with a fully spread wingspan stretching nearly 14 feet. Upon closer inspection both dragons seemed more muscular than when Pandora and Xenophilius examined them in detail about two years ago. Their legs in particular contained more muscle, clearly capable of more than just supporting their heavy, and similarly muscled torsos. Along with where their wings connected to their torsos, possibly indicating that they were getting closer to be able to fly, or being capable of it already. Standing on all four legs, their backs resting in a level position came up about 5 feet off the ground.

" **We want to show you something.** " Harry commented, the grin never leaving his toothy visage; his voice having a noticeably deeper tone than it had a few years ago. At that Luna started heading towards the far wall that had the large dresser lying against it. After a couple moments Harry followed after her, the elder Lovegoods quickly in tow, their curiosity getting the better of them. When Luna reached the dresser she used her head to push it several feet to the side, revealing a large hole in the wall.

"Why is there a hole in the wall?" Luna's father asked as he cast a slight glare towards the two still grinning dragons. He did notice however that comparing Luna to the hole in the wall, it would take a small miracle for either of them to fit through it; as if hearing his thoughts, the two dragons started glowing, Harry a pale yellow, and Luna an icy blue. Both dragons quickly shrank in size until they were about half of their original sizes. Their grins only getting bigger.

"Thats new." Pandora stuttered out, a clear look of surprise, and a little shock clear in her face; her husband reacted a bit more, making a good impression of a gaping fish.

" _Daddy, you might want to close your mouth before anything flies in._ " The she dragon commented with a clear chuckle, her voice sounding a bit softer, and more angelic than it had in the past. Harry trying not to laugh along side her.

" _Harry take the lead, I'll fill them in as we go._ " She continued. They kind of just nodded dumbly to that, following Harry into the dark abyss in the wall with Luna following closely behind them. After moment they regained their senses and noticed they couldn't see the tips of their noses. They both took out their wands and silently cast a weak lumos so that there was some light in the dark passageway. With some light illuminating the tunnel, they observed that about a dozen feet ahead of them the tunnel widened a fair bit and started heading down with a noticeable steepness; while they also took a quick moment to look back, and seen they had walked maybe a few dozen feet.

"I'm still a little lost, why did you two make a tunnel leading out of our basement?" Xenophilius questioned, still wondering as to the purpose of the whole thing.

" _In most of the bedtime stories you read us, the dragons usually had a lair or cave they lived in. So me and Harry were thinking since we're dragons, we should have a cave too._ " She answered with what looked like a smile on her face.

" **It can get really hard to stay small for a long time, and the basement was getting too small for us to play in.** " He added with a slight grin forming on his draconic face. Their parents were not quite sure how to react to that one- the kids dug a tunnel in their basement wall to Merlin-knows-where because they wanted more space to play. They just glanced at the two still grinning dragons incredulously before letting out a sigh. The small group continued walking to where the tunnel widened quite considerably. Once they were fully in the widened section, both dragons started glowing again before quickly growing to the sizes they were back in the basement.

 **"Much better, it's really annoying going that small.** " the lead dragon commented with a noticeable sigh of relief. After that he had stopped walking as the rest of the group got a little closer, he raised his tail to Pandora's and Xenophilius's arm level, earning a slight look of confusion from them.

" _Use his tail to brace yourselves, from here we are going down a lot quicker._ " She mentioned, taking note of their confusion. After hearing that the two adults looked ahead and noticed that the tunnel descended quite steeply; they each placed their open hand on Harry's tail, using it as a crutch to continue the descent into their dragon's cave. Out of curiosity, Pandora momentarily canceled her Lumos, and cast a quick charm. The charm told her that they were currently about 30ft below ground, she then looked and noticed that she couldn't see the bottom of the descending tunnel. And then she wondered to herself how deep they were going to end up going. She reactivated her Lumos right before they continued down the tunnel.

" _Not much longer, if you were wondering._ " The she-dragon commented with a slight giggle after they had been walking down the tunnel for a couple of minutes now. She could tell she answered what her parents were wondering as she seen they had a slight "oh" moment. "Maybe another minute or so."

"How long have you two been working on this? And how did we not find out about it?" Pandora asked, those two questions had been grating on her for the past couple minutes now.

" **We started around my third birthday.** " Harry answered.

" _After you made the basement larger, you didn't come down there much while we were playing. So we had plenty of time to work on this. We also tended to do it whenever we couldn't sleep or had nothing else to do._ " She added.

"Ok, now how were you two able to do this?" Xenophilius questioned.

" _We will show you the answer to that one after we reach the end of the tunnel._ " Luna answered with a smile, causing her parents to release another sigh. They continued walking for a bit, after another minute they finally reached the base of the tunnel. The adults noted the tunnel flattened out and then opened up ahead maybe a hundred feet or so; by that point the light from their Lumos spells was barely distinguishable from the darkness. Walking the end of the tunnel, they could tell that it opened up into a massive cavern.

Both adults, wanting to see it in more detail each cast several Lumos Maxima Spells, lighting the entirety of the large cavern. Pandora quickly cast another charm, telling her they were a bit over half a mile underground. As the light spells spread throughout the cavern, they were able to fully see it; not even attempting to hide their shock in the process. If they were to guess a World Cup Quidditch stadium could easily fit in the cavern with quite a bit of room to spare. After exiting the tunnel they walked forward a bit more, realizing they were standing on a fairly large ledge with both dragons on either side of them. Said dragons turned their heads to see the looks on the adults' faces and let out a slight laugh when they saw their clearly shocked expressions.

The ledge that they were standing on was towards the upper part of the cavern, residing about a 100 some feet below the cavern's ceiling, but was raised several hundred feet above what appeared to be the surface of a lake that covered the majority of the bottom of the cavern. There appeared to be a sandy beach at the end of the cavern opposite of where they were currently standing. The roof of the cavern itself rose into a large dome spanning the entirety of the cavern, rising perhaps a hundred feet or two at its center. Over on the left wall, about at where the wall curved into the domed ceiling was a small waterfall that fell into the lake below.

The walls of the cavern themselves were layered with a multitude of different colored rings, ranging from red, brown, yellow, and even a couple white; the rings themselves ranged from only a couple to nearly thirty feet in size from top to bottom. Upon closer inspection, they noticed there were glowing mushrooms, and a plethora of other bioluminescent flora lining much of the lakes coastline. Covering much of the ceiling were thin, dropping, glowing lines hanging from the ceiling, ranging from a couple inches to several feet in length, covering much of the domed roof. There were some glowing specs here or there along the walls but were largely barren, especially when compared to the ceiling or edges of the lake.

" _It's a lot to take in at first, but it is really pretty._ " Luna commented, still giggling from seeing the looks on her parents faces. "We finished the tunnel a bit after Harry's 4th birthday; by then we had found this place, and have been playing in here when we can."

"This is beyond amazing, I don't think words can accurately describe this place." Her mother muttered out, still taking in everything; her husband just nodded in agreement.

" **We still have to show you the lake!** " Harry happily exclaimed.

"Might as well get all the surprises out of the way." Xenophilius commented after having recovered from some of his earlier surprise and shock. "Pandora and I will apparate over to the beach, I'm assuming that you both have a way to get over there?"

After receiving two affirmative nods, the two adults apparated to the beach on the other side of the cavern; while the two dragons ran and jumped off the side of the ledge, and started falling into a free dive towards the lake. They quickly furled their wings towards their body, and still fell for several seconds before plunging into the lakes dark depths, each launching up a splash of water nearly 50 feet into the air. Using the speed from their dives they both quickly swam over towards the beach.

" **I love doing that.** " Harry commented as he and Luna came out of the lake onto the beach. Luna quickly nodded in agreement.

"We can tell." Pandora commented with a slight giggle. "Now do you two have any more surprises for us?"

" _Just a few more._ " She replied with a smile. At that Harry quickly became covered in a bright yellow glow, while Luna was enveloped in a snowy white one. Their glows slowly dissipated as they both quickly grew in size, after a few seconds they had stopped glowing, and had grown to a little over three times their earlier size. Harry was almost 48 feet from snout to tail with a 45 foot wingspan; while Luna was a bit over 50 feet in length with a 47 foot wingspan. "And this is why we don't play in the basement anymore."

The adults simply stood there in shock as they took in the details of the kids' full size dragon forms. Having just watched them grow from what would be considered a young adolescent for many species to the size of about a fully grown Hungarian Horntail in the span of a few seconds. And they were this large when Luna had only turned six, and Harry was several months younger than her. They almost shuddered at the thought of how large they would be in several years, even when they started Hogwarts, if they continued to grow at what seemed to be their current rate. Their train of thought was interrupted by the sound of flapping wings as the two dragons took off into the air and were flying around the cavern.

"Well, that answered that question." Luna's father commented with a slight chuckle, only having partially recovered from his most recent shock. Then almost as if on cue, the two dragons were remaining stationary in the air about 100 feet from each other and several stories above the surface of the lake. Harry let loose a bolt of pale yellow lightning from his jaws while Luna unleashed a torrent of ice and snow. The two met in the center between the two dragons, the lightning clashed into the frozen torrent for a moment before they both were cut off from their sources causing the their meeting point to erupt in an explosion of superheated steam. The cloud of steam expanded outward in every direction, quickly cloaking both dragons; after another couple moments the steam cloud started rising towards the top of the cavern.

After all the surprises this morning, you would think that the Lovegoods would have been a bit jaded to it by this point; but for them the opposite was more true. This most recent surprise pushed Pandora over the edge and she promptly fainted onto the beach, and her husband wasn't far behind her, barely being able to handle everything that had happened this morning. After he thought about it for a moment, he figured 'why not' and promptly let the surprise overwhelm him, passing out and laying down next to his wife on the beach. The dragons noticed this, grinned towards each other and then got back to playing while they waited for the adults to come back to reality.

After about an hour the children got bored of waiting for Luna's parents to wake up, so they flew down to the beach, landing with enough noise it could have woken the dead; or Pandora and Xenophilius in this case. They both quickly jolted up to see two grinning dragons.

"You two really are having too much fun with this." Pandora let out with another sigh. With a quick flick of her wand she transfigured her clothes into a plain blue one piece swimming suit; at seeing that her husband did the same to his clothes into plain silver swimming trunks. She glanced at the two still grinning dragons as they started heading towards the water. "Might as well get this over with."

With that the two adult quickly cast a bubblehead charm on themselves as they followed the two dragons into the water. After they were fully submerged in the water, they noticed that very little light penetrated more than a couple inches into the lake's murky depths, as such they each cast another Lumos at the tips of their wands and then continued to swim after the two dragons, who were now a fair ways ahead of them. After continuing to swim for several moments, the dragons stopped at the edge of an underwater cliff, the two adults quickly caught up with them and peered over the cliff's edge. After the cliff, the lake's bottom dropped nearly 200 feet, all the adults could see was an expanse of darkness; turning to each other and nodding, they quickly cast several Lumos Maxima Spells to illuminate the murky depths.

As the light spread outward, a myriad of glowing spots along the lake's bottom began to illuminate in a multitude of colors ranging from red, yellow, blue, green, and many in between those. As several seconds past, the party of four continued to watch the glowing spots as they seemed to grow into growing lengths of sea flora, ranging from a few inches to several feet in length as they seemed to dance along the lake's bottom. As the rate of the expanding glowing slowed down, it revealed that there was still a plethora of underwater plants that weren't glowing, ranging from large vines of seaweed, to many different forms of what seemed to be flowers, and even the occasional underwater tree littered the lakebed.

After they had been staring at glowing lakebed for almost a minute, the adults were broken from their current thought processes as the two dragons were almost pointing towards the lakebed several feet below them, a bit before the edge of the cliff. The two adults looked and seen what looked like a large field of small seaweed like vine that were from about 6 inches to nearly two feet in length. Luna and Harry were now making a grabbing motion with one of their clawed limbs, curiosity once again getting the better of them; Pandora and Xenophilius each swam down and grabbed a large handful of the seaweed like plant. They then seen that the two dragons were swimming back towards the beach; the adults quickly followed along; curious as to what the children where up to now.

"What do you think this stuff is?" Xenophilius inquired as he started casting a few Diagnostic Charms on the seaweed like plant, currently paying no attention to the two giggling dragons in the background.

"It isn't toxic, the charms aren't telling me much else though." His wife commented, curious as to the nature of the mysterious plant; when she noticed two certain giggling dragons. "Mind filling us in?"

" _Eat it, then you can breathe in the water._ " She commented between giggles.

" **And you can swim a lot faster, it's really cool!** " He added with clear enthusiasm. " **But you should be in the water when you eat it.** "

"Hmm, so it is a species of gillyweed." Luna's father commented, still not completely sure if he should eat it or not.

"It seems safe enough. And my curiousity is getting the better of me." Pandora replied with a slight chuckle. At that Xenophilius relaxed a bit and followed his wife back towards the lake; following behind the two dragons who were already nearly submerged.

After they had gone out far enough that they were treading water, they each stuffed their handful of the plant into their mouths and swallowed. Quickly feeling a slight tingling on the part of their bodies that was above water, they both dived underwater, causing the tingling to stop once they were fully submerged. After a few moments they both felt a different kind of tingling throughout their entire bodies. At first it was the most focused in their hands and feet as webbing grew between their toes and fingers, while their feet quickly elongated into a flipper like shape. A pattern of silver colored scales started appearing at the tips of their toes, rapidly spreading upwards till it reached a bit part their hips and was blending into their abdominal areas.

Both of their legs were being drawn towards one another, as the two legs neared each other they began to painlessly fuse from the waist down towards their webbed toes. As their legs were fusing together, small fin like growths were appearing from about midway down the forearm, and extending to the elbow on both of their their legs finished fusing together, the new tail-like appendage lengthened by a few feet as their webbed feet fused together and formed a larger slightly curved-in fan-shaped fin. A series of 3 gills sprouted shortly under where their tails met their torsos on either side. Pandora's swimming suit had disappeared and the top portion had been replaced by a pattern of silver scales in similar shape and design as a simplistic bikini top. The only parts of their heads that were affected was that their ears shifted into small 3 pointed fin like extensions that poked slightly out of their hair.

"What in the name of Merlin! Gillyweed doesn't change you anywhere near this much!" Pandora sounded out loudly, slightly in shock at all that had happened to her and her husband. "HARRY! LUNA! Get your scaly behinds over here now!"

The two dragons who had until then been swimming around in the water past the cliff quickly swam over to where Luna's parents were. Seeing what they had turned into, the two dragons started giggling again before reverting to their human forms. Then after a few moments, they both quickly shifted into a form similar to the adults, Harry's scales were patterned a bright electric yellow, while Luna's were an almost freezing icy blue. Besides that in their respective scale colors, they each had a thin line of scales that emerged from the hairlines on the sides of their heads and ran along the upper portion of their foreheads; as they ran above the eyes they curved into an inward spiral where both ends touched on their forehead directly above their noses. The scaled pattern continued in its inward spiral for about a circle and a half before fading into their skin. Additionally Harry had his lightning bolt scar in the center of his.

"An explanation would be nice." Xenophilius stated out, a bit calmer than his wife would have, but still clearly annoyed by the kids antics.

"The day we discovered this place, we were swimming in this lake as dragons when we saw the plant here. We sort of just knew it would be safe to eat." Luna answered, clearly a little nervous.

"We went back to normal to grab some and eat it; then after a little bit we changed and looked like this." Harry added, who seemed to be a bit more nervous than Luna.

"We have a lot of fun swimming and playing when we're like this, and we thought you would too." She followed up with, a clear bit more nervous than before.

"Please don't be mad at us, we just wanted to share the fun with you." He finished, looking like he was almost ready to cry for forgiveness at that point, Luna wasn't far behind him.

"Calm down, we're not mad- just surprised." Pandora answered the two almost teary children. She swam over to them, with her husband quickly following behind and enveloped the children in a hug. After a couple of moments the children calmed down, and were no longer on the verge of tears.

"Next time you want to show us something like this, can you talk to us about it first?" Xenophilius asked after the children had calmed down a bit more.

"We promise." They both remarked with clear enthusiasm.

"Good, now that that is settled, we have a couple more questions for you two. First how did you change without eating any of the gillyweed?" Pandora inquired, clearly curious as to their answer.

"After you have been eating it a while, you can just think about it. Then poof! It happens when you're in the water." Luna commented with a smile.

"Then just think about it, and you're back to normal." Harry added, back to his usual smiling self.

"Was that right away? Or after you had been eating it a while? And how long is a 'while'?" Xenophilius continued.

"After a while, at first you have to wait to turn back." Luna answered, before stopping to think for a second. "I think a couple months, and that was with us eating it every day."

"Any guess as to why you two have that scale pattern on your foreheads while we don't?" Her mother asked, after thinking about it for a moment.

"We think it has to with us being able to turn into dragons." Harry answered after giving it a little thought.

"I think that's the last of the questions; and I will admit I don't see any downsides to this. Before I couldn't see a foot in front of my face without a Lumos cast, now I can see many times better in this lake." Xenophilius commented with a small smile forming.

"I guess we're agreed this whole merpeople thing is a good one. Although kids we need to have a talk about not eating anything you suddenly see." Pandora commented with a chuckle. "We can just add this to the growing list of family secrets. Is there anything else you two want to show us?"

At that the two children giggled a little again, earning a slight eye roll from their parents. The two children quickly started shifting towards their dragon forms, but there were several key differences to their earlier dragon forms. Their heads and snouts were about twice as long as they had been, while their what used to be their horns was now a set of two 5 pointed fins that were similar to their ears earlier, currently folded in on the sides of their heads, resting along it towards their necks. There was also a distinct lack of arms, legs or wings, instead from the top of their skulls, there was a long dorsal fin that was running the length of their spines. The tips of their tails now had a similar fin as to their earlier form, but the curve of the fan was noticeably sharper. The coloring of their scales didn't change, although the scale pattern of their underbellies took on a larger segmented look; while the color of the fin's webbing was the same as their wings used to be. Both of them were about four times as long from snout to tail now; Harry measuring in at nearly 200 feet, while Luna was a bit over 210.

"I honestly should have seen that one coming." Pandora was the first comment as she resisted the urge to rest her face in her newly webbed hand. "So now besides dragons, and merpeople; the kids can turn into even larger sea serpents."

"Although if what they told us is anything to go by, after a couple of months, we should be able to turn into merpeople as well. And I will admit that could be useful at times; and we do look better than the ones in the black lake at Hogwarts." Xenophilius admitted, while also trying to console his wife a bit. By this point the two now sea serpents had gone back to playing over in the deeper portion of the lake.

"I guess, and besides I think any chance at normal, even by wizarding standards was thrown out the window when they turned into dragons and we got a visit from an elf that night." Pandora commented with a slight chuckle, finding amusement at the sheer absurdity of all this.

"True, but you have to admit, this is definitely going to be more fun." Her husband added with a smile.

"I'll agree with you on that, and I wouldn't have it any other way." She replied with a similar smile forming on her face as she swam towards the playing sea serpents to explore the rest of the lake.

"Me either." He commented to himself as she swam after his wife.

* * *

AN: I'll start by saying this isn't the start of everyone being able to turn into merpeople, this will be a secret up there with Harry and Luna being able to turn into dragons. It's also going to be a long term plot point, it will pop up next chapter, but probably not for a while after that. Also on the sea serpent thing, I felt it fit nicely with the merpeople/merdragon, and I thought it would be cool; and it's another long term plot point, and something else I can have fun with in the future.

Regarding the next couple of chapters. Next chapter is a trip to Gringotts, which got longer than originally intended, again. But I think it turned out well overall; the chapter is pretty much written, just need to do some editing so it should be out quicker than this chapter was. It also sets up for the small plot arc I want to do before starting the stuff for first year. Current plan is for the stuff for first year to start around chapters 7/8, but that will depend on how writing the next couple of chapters goes, might be pushed off a chapter or two if the chapters keep running away from me while writing.

Again thanks to everyone who is fol/faving, and a big thanks to reviewers. On the replying to reviews, current plan is to answer guest reviewers in the review section at the beginning of the chapter, and answer account reviews via PM. Anyways next chapter should be posted by the end of the week, and the chapter after that hopefully won't take to long. I'll keep my profile updated on the status of the next chapter


	4. Chapter 4: Discoveries

AN: Here is the next chapter. No reviews to reply to this time around, anyways enjoy the new chapter; and please follow/fav if you like the story. Also thanks to Fangirling Way Past My Bedtime for betaing this chapter.

* * *

 **The Cavern**

It had been a little under two years since Harry and Luna had first showed their parents The Cavern. For the first few months after that day, both Pandora and Xenophilius had taken to eating what they assumed was a subspecies of gillyweed every day, and after about three months they were able to freely shift between forms in the water. They had attempted to some research on gillyweed; while they discovered there were a few different species of it, depending on its location in the mediterranean, none of the known species they found caused changes like the one they had experienced. Similarly they tried to find documentation on the effects of long term gillyweed consumption, but didn't find much, as there had never been any studies conducted on the topic. Xenophilius had been tempted to write an article about what they had now figured was a new or lost species of gillyweed, however his wife quickly shot that down as it might lead to more attention than they would have wanted.

While the cavern was spacious, with both the children's dragon and serpent forms, their room to move around was starting to become limited as they continued to grow, and they only seemed to become more active as time passed. They had also made it a point to keep better track of the development of the children's two forms, so than to not be surprised like they were on Luna's 6th birthday. Recalling back to that day, they had also attempted to try and identify what species of dragon the children were; however they were already past the sizes of the largest species of dragons, and that's not counting the fact that they had breaths that were not fire. Lighting in Harry's case, and a combination of snow and ice for Luna. They had noticed that while Luna was always slightly larger than Harry due to her being older, over the past year or so Harry had caught up to Luna in the size department, and currently they were about equal. They both measured a little over 80 feet from snout to tail and had a wingspan in excess of 75 feet while their sea serpent forms measured in excess of 320 ft; which Xenophilius had started calling Leviathans. This had been a reference to a muggle book he had read once. The two had even attempted looking into muggle mythology stories to see if they could find anything, but had luck similar to their gillyweed inquiries.

They had also noticed that as they continued the consumption of the plant, they gained greatly improved night vision on their human forms; it didn't compare with their vision underwater in their mer-forms but it was enough that they eventually didn't even need to cast a Lumos inside the cavern; the glowing plants gave off enough light that they were comfortable enough without it. Currently the two adults were examining the flora on the deeper part of the lake bed while the children were playing in their dragon forms. The adults were alerted to a change when the two large sea serpents were swimming around them, clearly trying to get their attention.

"Yes?" Xenophilius sounded out as he continued to examine the underwater plants, not paying much attention to the two serpents; he'd long gotten used to their antics.

" **This place is getting too small to play in anymore.** " Harry whined out.

"We can't move around as much as we would like anymore, above the lake; and especially in it." Luna added to her best friends complaining.

"Hmm, if I remember right the Potter's had a couple of vacation homes throughout Europe we might be able to make use of since we're Harry's legal guardians. It's a long shot since Harry is underage, and it would involve a meeting with the Potter's account manager at Gringotts. However it would give us an answer to this issue, and a long term solution as well as the kids continue to grow in both forms." Pandora commented after thinking for a moment.

"That could work, plus they're pretty isolated and would give the kids room to move around to their heart's content; it would also give us some nice spots to take vacations." Her husband chimed in with a smile.

"I guess it's settled, let's go dry off and head for Gringotts." She finished as she started swimming towards the beach with the others quickly following behind her. It was about half an hour before the group was ready to leave for Diagon Alley.

"Harry, once we're in Diagon Alley, just do your best to ignore everyone and bear with it until we can get to Gringotts. Just keep holding my hand and everything should be fine." Pandora commented with a smile.

"Ok." He replied as he grabbed her hand, while Luna grabbed her father's; and with that the group disappeared with two cracks of apparition.

 **Diagon Alley**

"Remember Harry, don't let go of my hand. Luna do the same with your father's." Pandora stated as the two children nodded affirmatively; they then appeared in an alleyway a few shops down from Gringotts. When they first exited into the main portion of Diagon alley, a few people looked out of curiosity; however that quickly changed as within a few dozen steps into the main portion of the alley, they were the center of attention for every witch and wizard around them. It hadn't taken long for everyone to realize that the small group had Harry Potter with them, and quickly started swarming them. The adult Lovegoods were quick to pick up on that the children were getting very nervous, as such with a quick use of apperation, the four were on the steps of Gringotts and hurried inside the marble building. They entered the main lobby which opened up into a large open room with rows of podiums for the goblin tellers on either side of the room.

"Harry, Luna, let us do the talking with the goblins unless they ask you a question directly; in which case be polite and truthful. But if you don't feel comfortable or don't know how to answer the question we can help. For now just stay close to us." Luna's father informed them. At that the group walked towards an open teller.

"We have Harry Potter with us, and would like to meet with the Potter's account manager." Pandora firmly stated towards the goblin in the teller's booth. Said goblin looked up for a minute, before muttering something in gobbledegook, after a few moments two other goblins came over and were conversing with the teller in slightly hushed tones.

"I'm getting a bad feeling about this." Xenophilius muttered, not completely sure what to make of the conversing goblins.

"We are already here, might as well follow though." Pandora commented, attempting, and failing to calm both of their nerves. It was a few moments later that the goblins stopped conversing, and the two of them hurried off into the bank.

"If you would follow me, we will make sure Mr. Potter is who you say he is, and then you can meet with the Potter account manager after that." The teller commented as he lead the group of four down a large hallway before stopping outside a set of large double doors. "Enter through here, and the goblins inside with confirm Mr. Potter's identity, then it will be taken from there."

The group of four each nodded towards the goblin, after which he walked down the hallway back towards the main lobby. A moment later the large doors started opening, at which the Lovegoods lead the children inside; however once they were several feet into the room, the doors slammed shut behind them; and a large runic array on the ground lit up, quickly encircling them. The adults attempted to lead the children out of the runic array before it activated, however after a single step, all four of them found themselves immobilized. After another few moments the runic array finished activating, at that Pandora and Xenophilius could feel the majority of their magic being binded; they could tell that it was also happening to the children as they started to freak out.

"Harry, Luna you have to calm down. I promise everything is going to be alright." Pandora struggled to get out, upon hearing that the children calmed down a bit, but were still clearly tense and worried. As she finished saying that, on both sides of the room, a set of large, double doors opened up as what appeared to be a small legion of goblins covered in armor, wielding either a spear or large axe. The goblins continued to swarm into the room as they encircled the runic circle, putting about a 50 foot gap between them. After several moments the goblins had finished moving into position with their weapons at the ready; capable of swarming the group at the slightest hint of aggression. Everything was still for several more seconds before on the far end of the room, another set of double doors opened; allowing an unarmed goblin, followed by a group of more heavily armored goblins right behind him. The goblin encirclement opened up slightly to allow the new arrivals a bit closer to Harry and the Lovegoods.

"The wards registered you four as anomalies. Identify yourselves and state your purpose for being here." The lead, unarmed goblin commanded out.

"I am Xenophilius Lovegood, this is my wife Pandora and our child Luna. We have Harry Potter, my wife's godson with us and we wanted to meet with the Potter account manager about gaining access to the Potter vacation properties." He replied, trying not to let his nervousness show.

"If you are who you say you are, then why do none of you register as fully human?" The lead goblin retorted back, this earned a clear look of shock on all four of their faces. Xenophilius was the first to recover as he got an idea.

"Can we talk about this calmly without all the armed guards if I can prove we are who I say we are?" He replied back, hoping the goblin would agree to it.

"Very well, you have one chance to confirm your identities." The goblin replied, waiting to see what happened next.

"I Xenophilius Lovegood, swear on my magic, that what I previously said to be true. So I say, so mote it be." He enunciated after slowly pulling out his wand and starting the magical vow. After he finished the vow, the wand let out a small shower of sparks, confirming that he was telling the truth. At that all the goblins in the room visibly relaxed. The head goblin commanded something in gobbledegook; at which the majority of the armed goblins left through the doors they entered, and the runic array started powering down.

"Ripclaw the Lovegood account manager, and Ripshear the Potter account manager will be with us momentarily. We will continue this discussion once they arrive." The goblin commanded. About a minute later, two goblins, considerably more well dressed then the teller in the main lobby walked through the set of doors on the far end of the room.

"You summoned us, supervisor Sharptooth?" The shorter of the two goblins stated as they neared the now identified Sharptooth.

"Yes, I felt it was pertinent for you both to be present for this conversation." The lead goblin commented before pointing a clawed finger towards the 4 others in the room. "The wards registered them as anomalies, but have been identified as Xenophilius Lovegood, Pandora Lovegood, Luna Lovegood, and Harry Potter."

"I see why you summoned us, perhaps an identification test would be of use." Ripclaw commented, the other two goblins quickly nodding in agreement.

"Follow us to the ritual chamber." Sharptooth commanded as he followed the two account managers and retinue of armed guard left though the set of double doors right behind Harry and the Lovegoods. They followed right behind them, exiting back into the hallway; after walking a ways further down the hallway, they reached another set of double doors the abruptly opened. The goblins walked through with the group of magicals right behind them. Inside the large room stood a podium with a bowl on top of it in the center of the room. Along the walls were many different inscriptions.

"You will each take a blood and magic identification test before this conversation continues. The fee for the test will be withdrawn from your respective vaults. Mr. Potter will go first, followed by each of the Lovegoods. When you reach the central podium, a dagger will cause a drop of blood to fall into the bowl." Sharptooth commanded, before making a hand gesture for Harry to walk towards the podium. After receiving a confirmative nod from the Lovegoods, Harry walked towards the podium.

Once he reached the podium and stuck his arm out, a dagger floated up and pricked his palm, causing a drop of blood to fall into the bowl. After a few seconds the water in the bowl turned a bright electric yellow before a bolt of lightning erupted out of the bowl towards the ceiling. The lightning neared the ceiling as it collided with the top of a golden dome that appeared between the bolt and the ceiling. The bolt clashed with the dome for a moment before destroying itself and breaking a portion of the dome in the process. The Lovegoods each had a clear look of slight shock on their faces, the two account managers merely appeared to be surprised; while the supervisor remained stoic and neutral.

"What just happened?" Pandora muttered out as she blinked her eyes a few times.

"Something very interesting. I will return momentarily." Sharptooth commented as his neutral look turned into a slight grin, unnerving everyone in the room in the process. After that he walked out of the room, causing everyone in the room to relax a bit.

"Ripclaw, can you please explain what is going on?" Xenophilius commented towards his account manager.

"What I can, Xenophilius." the goblin commented, earning a look of confusion from the children. "We have to follow decorum when in the presence of the supervisor or anyone above supervisor didn't take any chances when you four registered as anomalies by the wards, so he followed policy and detained you until your identities were proven. As for what happened when Mr. Potter did the magical identification test, I can't really even hazard a guess." He continued.

"So what happens now?" Pandora inquired.

"If I were to guess the supervisor went to get the bank manager, or possibly even the bank director. In either case this is may become much more serious." The goblin replied with a slight grimace. It was a few moments later that the double doors opened, in came Sharptooth, as well as a slightly taller goblin behind him. The goblin wore a suit of gold colored armor. As the armored goblin entered the room, every other goblin in the room immediately bowed to his presence. The two adults in the room paused for a moment before bowing to the goblin as well, then Harry and Luna seeing their parents doing it, followed in suit.

"Interesting." The gold armored goblin let out with a chuckle as he formed a toothy smirk on his face. After a few moments the goblins started raising from their bows, and a couple had a slight look of confusion; Harry and the Lovegoods appeared to be the most confused. "It has been quite some time since a wizard has bowed before a goblin."

"I am bank director Ragnok, now from what supervisor Sharptooth informs me of that during Mr. Potter's identification test, something interesting happened. Mr. Potter would you repeat the test so that I may observe the reaction with my own eyes." The now identified Ragnok continued, causing a fair amount of the goblins in the room to have puzzled looks on their faces. Harry being slightly confused looked towards Xenophilius and Pandora, who both nodded affirmatively, at that he walked back towards the podium where the dagger repeated the ritual. Earning the same reaction as before, abet with a slightly larger bolt of lightning this time.

"Interesting, very interesting. Miss Luna, now if you would do as Mr. Potter just did." He commented, serving only to confuse more of the goblins in the room. Luna quickly nodded and walked towards the podium with an outstretched hand. The dagger floated up once more causing a single drop of blood to fall into the bowl. After a few moments a beam of ice erupted from the bowl in a similar fashion as the lightning bolt had moments prior. Upon seeing this Ragnok's smirk turned into a full blown smile before he started chuckling again, to the confusion of everyone in the room.

"Everyone except the supervisor and account managers is dismissed, you will speak nothing of this." Ragnok commanded, causing all the armed goblins to quickly bow towards him in confirmation before marching out the double doors. The doors quickly shut themselves after the last goblin had gone though, at this Ragnok looked towards the Lovegoods.

"Tell me, what are you aware of concerning what had just happened?" He continued, causing everyone in the room to become even more confused at this. After thinking for a moment, he spoke. "Mr. Potter, Miss Lovegood, would you kindly change into your other forms for me?"

This earned varied reactions from the those remaining in the room. The other goblins continued to look puzzled, while Harry and Luna looked like they were on the verge of a panic attack, their parents weren't far behind them. The children looked towards the adults, who after a few moments knew they didn't have much of a choice and nodded towards the children. At that the children calmed a bit before shifting to their full size dragon forms. At this the goblins excluding the direction had a clear look of shock on their faces as they subconsciously backed towards the nearest wall. Meanwhile the directors smile became even bigger before returning to a neutral expression.

"You both can return to your human forms now." He commented. "To think I would see both a storm and a frost dragon."

"You know what they are?" Pandora questioned a moment before her husband could. "Is there anything about it that you would be willing to share with us? We have tried researching it but have found nothing."

"Perhaps for the right price. However first you two are both going to complete the identification test." The goblin commented, his neutral expression turning into a slight grin. At that the two adults nodded. Xenophilius approached the podium first with an outstretched hand; at that the dagger once again floated up causing a drop of blood to fall into the bowl. After a few moment the bowl started rumbling, and then the water in the bowl shot up about two feet like a geyser, before dying back down after a few moments. Pandora repeated the process with the same result. By this point Ragnok's grin had spread into a toothy smile from ear to ear.

"It seems like you will some of the answers you seek, however we are first going to make a slight detour." The goblin continued, after which he turned to the other goblins and stated something in their native tongue. The three goblins nodded before falling in line behind the director who had started walking back towards the hallway. "Follow."

Not quite sure what to make of this, Pandora and Xenophilius looked at each other and quickly nodded before running to catch up with the goblins. The children, seeing this and not wanting to be left behind, ran to catch up with them. The group of 8 exited into the hallway and continued walking further down it. After walking past a couple sets of doors, the group stopped as one of them opened to reveal a descending stairway. The goblins were quick to walk through, with their guests right behind, as they descended. After walking down the stairs for over a minute they ended at the entrance to a short tunnel with two lavishly decorated double doors that remained closed to them.

"Mr. and Mrs. Lovegood, if each of you would place a hand on one of the doors and channel some of your magic into them we can proceed." The director stated again. Wanting to finally get some answers, they both walked towards one of the doors and pushed some magic into it from their outstretched hands. As the magic entered into the door, it's carvings slowly began to emit a pale light. Closer to where the doors met each other, a pattern of colliding waves was glowing in a soft blue, while further from the middle the doors were coated in a pattern of green glowing vines. The pair of doors slowly started opening as the last of the vines started to glow. The doors opened to reveal a massive cavern. A ring of torches along the cavern walls quickly lit themselves as the doors finished opening. Taking up the majority of the cavern's floor space was a large pool of crystal clear water; while the walls were coated in green vines that also snaked up coating much of the cavern's ceiling.

"If you four would get into the pool in front of you and shift to your other forms, and after which we can continue this discussion." The goblin commented again. Kind of just going along with it at this point, The four headed to the edge of the pool and dived in quickly shifting to their merpeople forms. The four goblins walked closer to the edge of the pool where they could easily see every detail the water contained. Quickly a small look of shock emerged on the supervisor and account manager's faces while the director's changed to another toothy grin. He then nodded towards the two children, who, as if understanding what he was asking, swam deeper into the pool. After several moments, and having gotten closer towards the center of the pool; they shifted into their Leviathan forms; at first they were fully submerged in the water but after a moment the two raised their heads out of the water till they were nearly 40 feet above the pools surface. At this the three goblins in the room not counting the director fell backwards in shock and slight fear of the two massive sea serpents before them..

"That is enough of that." The director commented with a chuckle. After a few moments the two serpents got the hint and shifted back to their smaller forms. The four then exited the pool shortly after that, by which time the other goblins had recomposed themselves. "I will answer some of your questions, but not all of them."

"You called the children storm and frost dragons, what are those? We have tried researching into dragons extensively, but we didn't find anything that even alluded to those." Xenophilius inquired.

"I'm assuming you were looking through your own kinds research and documentation of dragons?" he responded, quickly receiving two affirmative nods. "Tell me did you come across the term Wyvern at all in your studies? In any muggle sources perhaps?"

"No we didn't. On the topic of dragons, muggle sources are works of imagination so they wouldn't be of much use." Pandora explained, earning a small chuckle from Ragnok.

"What you wizards consider dragons are only Wyverns, they are similar to true dragons but have only 4 limbs instead of 6 like those two do in their dragon forms. Your "dragons" that are around nowadays are what's left after the actual dragons went more or less extinct millennia ago. The dragon's type was based on their coloring and the element of their breaths, while the Wyverns around currently are limited to only fire. I'm assuming that doesn't apply to these two." He continued, abet taking a slight pause until he received a confirmatory nod from the children. "It is unknown what caused the dragons to disappear, there is some speculation, but nothing concrete. Now tell me, what do you think the children are?"

"Wouldn't they be animagi who can turn into a magical creature, but apparently an extinct one.?" Luna's father answered, earning another chuckle from the goblin.

"Your not correct, but not entirely incorrect either. Tell me what do you wizards consider an animagus to be?" He replied back, earning a slightly puzzled look from the two adults.

"It's not my area of expertise, but an animagus is a witch or wizard that has the ability to change at will into an animal that reflects their personality. However there has never been a recorded instance of a magical animagus, until Harry and Luna that is." Pandora informed, again earning a slight chuckle from the goblin; to her now slight annoyance.

"Again close, but not quite. From what I am aware of your correct on the animagus bit; except regarding Mr. Potter and Ms. Luna. The ability to freely change into a magical creature is limited to those of elven descent. If I recall correctly neither of their lines have any elven blood in them." He paused for another moment till he received a nod from the present account managers. "And with how fayophobic you humans are of them, if there was even a rumor of it their lines would have probably been stomped out."

"Then why can the children turn into dragons if they don't have elven blood in them?" Pandora inquired, earning a larger grin from Ragnok.

"Now that is part of the mystery. I can see a lightning mark on Mr. Potter's forehead, Ms. Luna do you have a mark of ice or snow?" He questioned. Luna nodded before raising her left hand to reveal a thin scar marking in the shape of a snowflake. "I thought as much, if you seek answers I suggest trying to find out more about those marks. In return for letting me see two true dragons, you have two more questions. Choose wisely."

"What can you tell us about how we all registered as anomalies by your wards?" Xenophilius asked after thinking for a moment, causing Ragnok's smile to grow slightly.

"The wards registered your magic as not entirely human like supervisor Sharptooth informed you earlier. You four did something that altered your magic such that it isn't completely human anymore, or in Mr. Potter and Ms. Luna's case even less so. Which is clear from the fact that you four can shift into more aquatic forms at will. Since it is related to this I'll tell you for free; the serpent forms of Mr. Potter and Ms. Luna are what were known as Leviathans; they were cousins of the dragons and disappeared about the same time they did. Now what is your last question?" He explained.

"How much has our magic been altered?" Pandora questioned, slightly worried about the answer; this earned another chuckle from the goblin.

"Not as much as you are fearing. It changed enough that you gained an ability similar to your "magical animagus" but the change in your magic won't register on human wards. However some magical creatures will be able to sense the difference and may react accordingly." He stated, much to the Lovegood's relief. Ragnok then turned to the account managers and said something in gobbledegook, causing them to gulp slightly in fear before nodding. "As that is all I shall be taking my leave, you can discuss your business with the account managers."

At that the director, followed by the supervisor started walking back towards the stairway, when the director stopped for a moment. "I will say you four are unlike most wizards who have overinflated egos of their own importance; so I will leave you with a parting gift. If you still seek answers you will not find them within your tomes; however you may not like what you will find." At that the two senior goblins left up the stairway.

"Perhaps we should re-adjourn to my office to discuss why you came here originally." Ripshear commented as he started heading towards the exit, followed quickly by the remaining occupants in the room. After a short walk, the group was in Ripshear's fairly spartan office, it didn't contain much besides a desk, several chairs, and a cabinet for holding papers.

"You wish to gain access to the Potter vacation properties, that correct? He knowingly questioned, at which the group of four each nodded. "Normally this would not be possible as Mr. Potter is underage, however since he is the last of the Potter line he is in fact the head of house in name only, since, again, he is under age. With you being his legal guardians, with a little paperwork you Mrs. Lovegood can be considered regent Potter till Mr. Potter is of age; in which case you would gain access to the Potter properties." He informed them with a slight grin.

"That would be very helpful, is there a way we can keep it being known that I am regent Potter, at least temporarily?" Harry's godmother questioned.

"By our contract with your ministry we would have to inform them of such changes, however we can accidentally misfile the notice into a less important category, and your ministry wouldn't get around to the notice for most likely a couple years at least. For the right price of course." He replied with a toothy smile.

"That would be perfect, and you can take your fee from our vault." Xenophilius replied with a smile on his face. After that, Pandora spent the next half hour filling out paperwork with the occasional signature needed from Harry.

"Everything is in order, I will return momentarily with the portkeys for each of the properties." The goblin commented as he exited the room and came back a minute later carrying a few different objects. "This rope is for the Potter's retreat in the Swiss Alps, this boot is for the Potter's private island in the Mediterranean; and this umbrella is for an older property in Northern Norway. Now if that is all, I have other business to attend to."

"The wards have been adjusted so we don't have a repeat of today. Now I trust you can see yourselves out. Until next time Xenophilius, Pandora." Ripclaw calmly stated before walking back towards his own office.

"That went better than I expected." Luna's father commented as he let out a sigh of relief once the goblin had left the room, he then turned towards the children. "So where do you two want to go?"

"Alps!" They stated in unison.

"I guess that's decided. Let's get home and packed for a family vacation." Pandora stated with a chuckle. With that they left Gringotts and returned to The Rook.

 **London Suburbs**

A young girl with brown, almost uncontrollable hair was currently in her room packing a large suitcase. Her room contained a large bookshelf filled with books, besides that there were stuffed animals around the room, with the occasional Barbie toy here and there.

"Hermione, are you almost ready? We need to leave soon if we're going to catch our flight." A woman's voice called out from the first floor.

"Coming mom." Hermione yelled back as she grabbed her suitcase and hurried down the stairs. "I'm ready!"

"I can see that, someone certainly is excited for their trip to the Alps." A man stated as he walked towards the two girls. At that the family of three walked out their front door, ready to enjoy their vacation.

* * *

An: Just a couple quick things, first this is not the start of lunar harmony. Hermione's pairing is currently undecided and will probably depend on how the story goes. Anyways thanks to everyone who is following/faving, and a big thanks to people who are reviewing. If you like the story, or have comments about it let me know in s review, it helps motivate me to write. Anyways next chapter should be posted next weekend.


	5. Chapter 5: Vacations

AN: Its been quite a while since I last updated this story, but since my last update I started at a new job with has eliminated the vast majority of my free time. I'm hoping that I will have some more free time soon; but I will have to wait and see. And the writers block im having on chapter 6 isn't helping much either. I'm not going to abandon this story, I want to finish it eventually. Anyways thanks to Fangirling Way past my bedtime for betaing this.

* * *

 **The Rook**

"So everyone ready?" Luna's father sounded out towards the other three in the room. After a couple quick nods, he gestured for all of them to grab hold of the rope in his hand. The spell on the portkey activated as the last of the group grabbed it causing them all to disappear inside a swirl of colors. As the world blurred around them, both of the children had a look of amazement, and a hint of nauseousness as they continued to spiral around the piece of rope. After several moments, Pandora gestured for the kids to let go, and after doing so they plummeted into the snow filled ground outside the Potter's retreat; with the two adults walking through the air towards where the children had landed.

After a couple of moments both Harry and Luna managed to stand up and look at the scenery around them. They were currently residing on a small cliff at the base of a snow capped mountain; several hundred feet below the side of the cliff was a large, currently frozen lake that had formed in the valley between several mountains. The sides of the frozen lake was lined in rocky, snow covered shores, after a little ways from the lake's coastline a snow covered pine forest started, that spread throughout much of the valley surrounding the lake; and progressed up the slopes of the mountains till they became too steep. The trees were all covered in several inches of freshly fallen snow, creating an image of a white, frozen wonderland.

Back on the cliff, the group was in a small clearing near its edge, and like the slopes in the valley, the clearing quickly ended into a snow topped pine forest the ascended the slopes of the mountain. The Potter retreat was located in this clearing; it was a simple two story cottage, very similar in its outward design as to what remained of the one in Godric's hollow.

"Where do you think you two are going? Its almost dark, you can explore tomorrow when there is plenty of daylight." Pandora commented as she used a quick spell to keep two excited children from running off.

"Ok." They both replied with a bit of a pout as they followed the adults into the retreat. As they entered the building, the adults noted that the similarities to the cottage in Godric's Hollow wasn't limited to the outside, the inside layout was almost identical to the former cottage. After walking through the entryway, the group went up the stairs and split to head towards their respective bedrooms to unpack; the adults headed towards the master bedroom. While the kids headed towards the other end of the hall; and stopped when they reached where two doors across from each other reside. They looked at each other, and with a quick shrug they both walked through the left side door.

The walls were covered in a simple orange with a red trim lining the top and bottoms of the walls. There was a small four pane window that was currently closed to the outside, that had red curtains covering it; below it was a simple twin bed, abet one that was on the larger side. The sheets and covers were red patterned in orange griffons. There were also a few wall mounted magical candles that were lit to light up the room after the sun went down; besides that the room was fairly spartan. Harry and luna walked towards the bed, and each pulled a shrunken trunk out of their pockets, after they landed on the floor besides the bed, they quickly expanded to their original sizes. After a short period of unpacking, they went downstairs and waited for dinner to be ready.

 **Earlier, London suburbs**

An eight year old, bushy brown haired girl was pulling her wheeled suitcase towards the family car, a white 4-door sedan. Waiting besides the car were the girl's parents; the mother was a thin woman of medium stature with black hair and brown eyes, while her father was a similarly thin man of a taller stature with brown hair and green eyes. The girl handed her suitcase to her father before getting in the back of the car, while he put the suitcase in the trunk with their other luggage; meanwhile her mother got into the car.

It was around midday when the family left their house in the London suburbs, and early afternoon by the time they were on the small jet heading for the swiss alps where their vacation was going to be taking place. They arrived at the swiss airport by late afternoon, and come early evening were outside the newly built ski lodge they were staying at. The lodge was a large four story building built into the side of the mountain, and the outward appearance of the building game the impression it was built out of wood; despite the fact that it was a primarily steel building.

After checking in at the front desk, the family went to their room on the third floor. The room was fairly simple in design, with two large beds,and a couple wall mounted lights. Besides that there was a small dresser in the corner of the room, and a decently sized television that rested on top of it, and between the beds was a small nightstand. The family of three, were able to unpack fairly quickly before heading down to the eating area of the lodge to get some dinner; after that they returned to their room to get some sleep for the start of their vacation tomorrow.

The family was alerted to the following morning as the sun's rays peered in through the window waking them fairly quickly. The little girl was up with the sun's first rays, her excitement almost palpable as she was ready to be outside skiing within 10 minutes; while her parents were still waking up. Her parents were ready after about another 20 minutes, and were outside the lodge on the mountains gentle slope, ready to ski with their daughter. The region outside the lodge was primarily a gentle downward, snowy slope with the sparsely located pine tree; this was the family and kid friendly section of the slopes. While the steeper and more rigorous slopes were located off on either side of the area directly in front of the lodge.

 **Potter retreat, otherside of the mountain**

Despite not being in the direct path of the sun's morning rays; both Harry and Luna were awake and out of their seperate beds within minutes, dressed and jumping on the bed their parents shared shouting "It's morning" with every jump. After a few moments, both adults were stirred from their sleep, and at seeing this the two hyperactive children stopped their jumping before rushing downstairs, awaiting breakfast from the adults.

"They certainly are hyper today." Pandora commented with a chuckle as she continued to wake up. At that they both got out of bed, and a quick swish of their respective wands changed their sleepware into their day clothes. After that they headed downstairs to start breakfast, and a little while later the family was eating pancakes in the dining room. The walls of the room were loosely decorated with a large oak table and ten chairs surrounding dominating the center of the room. There was a medium sized candle lit chandelier hanging above the center of the table.

"You two planning on exploring the area around the retreat today?" Xenophilius commented between mouthfuls.

"Yep!" They both replied during a quick vigorous nod, the excitement clear on their faces.

"Remember to be back before dark." Pandora calmly stated, shortly before the two kids nodded again in agreement. After that the kids finished eating with gusto. After they finished eating they rushed up towards their shared room, putting on the thick winter jackets, mittens and hats they had brought with them. After they finished dressing, they rushed down the stairs, waving to their parents in the process as they rushed out the door and into the snowy clearing. They continued running through the clearing towards the edge of the cliff, and within moments they were in the air plummeting towards the frozen surface of the lake below. The moment they started falling, the effect of gravity overpowering their initial jump, they started shifting towards their dragon forms; growing to 20 feet, 30 feet, and up to their full length within seconds as a set of powerful wings erupted from their shoulder blades. They were fully shifted by the time they were halfway down the cliffside.

The two dragons glanced towards each other, before Harry gave a quick nod towards Luna. After which he opened his fanged mouth and charged a bolt of lightning, after a few moments a inch thick bolt of pale yellow lightning flashed towards the icy surface below. The ice below them was almost a foot and a half thick, but right as the lightning bolt struck the ice, the energy from the bolt superheated the frozen water particles into steam. The energy from the bolt spread outward into the ice, superheating a patch of ice that was a little over a hundred feet in diameter. The steam started rushing up and outward almost instantly after the lightning made contact, engulfing both descending dragons within a couple moments. While the two dragons were diving through the rising steam cloud, as they approached the lake's surface, they quickly leveled out and flew out of the steam cloud with trails of steam streaking behind them.

" **That was cool.** " The storm dragon commented with an excited chuckle, he started flying above part of the frozen lake as Luna caught up with him and following along side. " **So what now?** "

" _Hmm, lets fry around for a bit, and then look for a cave._ " She replied happily as the thought crossed her mind.

" **Ya, we need a cave here; but why find one when we can probably make one!** " He happily mentioned as he steadily got more and more excited at the idea.

" _Oh that sounds like fun._ " she joyfully replied as the two dragons continued to fly above the frozen lake. While they were flying around, the steam cloud continued to expand and rise upwards; by this point it had already peaked above the side of the cliff that the Potter's retreat was located on. It wasn't much longer after that the rising cloud was visible to the guests of the ski lodge on the other side of the mountain.

 **Ski slopes**

"Mom, what is over there?" A young girl questioned as she pointed towards the rising column of steam poking up from the other side of the mountain.

"The map at the lodge showed that there is a lake over there, but at this time of the year it would be frozen over." The girl's mother commented.

"The rising column in probably steam or water vapor; although what would cause that much is anyone's guess." The girl's father added, clearly a bit curious.

"Can we go see the lake?" The little girl commented as she was clearly curious.

"I suppose Hermione; I'll admit I would like to see it as well." Her mother commented with a slight smile. With the family of three headed back to the ski lodge to stow away their ski equipment, and be better prepared for a hike to the other side of the mountain.

 **Frozen lake**

" **So where should we go make our cave?** " Harry commented while trying to think how to answer the question himself.

" _Hmm, it should be somewhere hidden. We don't want people to be able to simply walk to it._ " She replied after thinking for a moment. " _We should look around a bit, maybe between the mountains._ "

" **Sounds good to me.** " He replied as he followed after the dragoness in search of somewhere secluded where they could make their cave. After exploring a while, they decided to try along the rivers that fed into the lake. They decided to start with the river that ran in a ravine along the mountain that the Potter retreat was on. The riverbed were currently exposed as any water that would be flowing down them was currently locked up in snow and ice on the mountains. The two dragons landed where the mouth of the river would have entered the lake; as their eyes progressed upstream, they noticed that the riverbed was exiting out of a large, deep ravine. The riverbed itself was only 15, maybe 20 feet in length; as it progressed into the ravine, the opening steadily shrank to around 40 feet between the rock faces. It

" _I think this will work, let's take a look._ " She commented, liking the idea of having the entrance to their cave in a small deep canyon. Luna took the lead, with Harry following behind her given that the ravine itself would have quickly become too constricting if they walked down it side by side. As the two large dragons walked further down the rocky lakebed, they would occasionally glance up, taking note that the grey cliffs on either side of them got progressively higher. After they had been walking for a while, the sides of the ravine were well over a hundred feet above their heads, and progressively getting higher.

" **This far enough?** " He questioned after he had just glanced up.

" _Maybe, let's take a look up there first._ " She replied after looking up and thinking for a moment. She then looked towards Harry, and with a quick nod they both began to shrink till they were both only ten feet in length. At that they were able to fly up towards the top of the ravine fairly easily; as their heads broke above the cliff face, they noticed that the area around where they were was mostly an open clearing with an occasional snow covered pine. She continued to look around for a moment when she seen that deeper along the ravine there was a beginning of a thick pine forest; at that she flew back down into the ravine with Harry following closely behind. " _Lets keep going._ "

" **Ok.** " He commented as he landed back on the ground, once again walking behind his best friend. After a couple moments, both dragons returned to their full sizes and continued walking deeper into the ravine. They continued walking while occasionally glancing up to notice when the forest was overhead; after a while they figured they were already fairly deep into the forest, and by this point the walls of the ravine rose over 150 feet above their heads. They stopped for a moment as Luna glanced further down the ravine and noticed something.

" _Harry, look ahead and tell me what you see in the distance._ " She inquired as she continued to focus her eyes.

" **I see a cliff in front of us, far off from here though. I can barely see it.** " He replied after focusing for a moment when an idea popped into his head, he then glanced towards Luna who was nodding her head at him.

" _I think we found where we can make our cave._ " She cheerfully commented as she walked towards the end of the ravine, with Harry once again quickly in tow. After a long while they reached the end of the ravine, its walls now raising over 250 feet above their heads. At this point she looked towards the dragon behind her and then glanced upwards; a couple moments later he understood the message and both dragons shrank down to about ten feet in length again. They flew up to the top of the ravine, and observed that while there was the forest surrounding them, the trees were not very dense in concentration surrounding the beginning of the ravine. They also noticed that there was a slight impression in the ground where the river flowed into ravine; having seen enough the two dragons flew back down into the ravine, returning to their full size after they landed.

" **This will work nicely.** " Harry happily commented as Luna nodded in agreement. " **But how are we going to make our cave? In some of the stories we've been read the dragons make their caves by using their fire breath, but we don't breathe fire.** "

" _Hmm, we could use our claws._ " She replied after thinking for a moment. She then raised her clawed appendage and carved into the rock with some difficulty. " _That won't work._ "

" **Let me try something.** " He commented after an idea popped into his head; he opened his fanged mouth, where it was clear a burst of lightning was being charged. After a few moments the bolt of lightning erupted from his mouth and collided with the rock's surface. The energy from the bolt was transferred into the rock, rapidly heating it as it started to melt into a grey liquid that started forming an increasingly large indent in the cliffside, where Luna had originally tried to claw into the rock. He kept up the lightning bolt for as long as he could, letting up about 20 seconds later; As the bolt ended its clash inside the rock surface, the two dragons looked to see the results of his attempt. There was an initial crater, forming an almost perfectly semi-spherical impression that was about almost 5 feet deep, coated in a semi-liquified coating of grey stone. At the center of the impression, there was another almost perfectly circular tunnel that was only around a foot in diameter that extended into where the lightning bolt had drilled into the cliffside. The tunnel in the center of the crater extended a couple hundred feet into the cliff side. By now Harry had regained his energy. " **That kinda worked, but we need something more to make the cave bigger.** "

" _Like something that has a bit more boom? Like when your lightning meets my snow?_ " She replied with a grin as a fanged smile quickly appeared on Harry's face. " _You good for another go?_ "

" **Ya, what are you thinking?** " He commented, curious as to what she had planned.

" _We both aim our breaths at the center of hole, so the steam from it is forced into it. Hopefully we can make it big enough to be a cave for us that way._ _Let's start on the count of 3._ " She informed him as he replied with a confirmatory nod. " _Three, two, one._ "

After that Luna unleashed her breath of snow and ice while Harry let loose a dark yellow lightning bolt a moment later, both of the dragon's breath collided; and the energy of the bolt superheated the contents of Luna's breath into boiling steam. The steam rapidly flowed into the tunnel leading into the cliff face, away from where the breaths were colliding; as the breaths continued to collide, the pressure the steam was under in the tunnel continued to increase. After about 15 seconds Harry ceased his lightning breath, while Luna let up a second later; this extra second caused a layer of thick ice to cover the entrance to the tunnel, sealing the pressurized steam inside. The seal of ice was about even with the cliff face, completely filling the initial crater. Harry looked a little confused at this, which she quickly picked up on.

" _The rock was easier to break then my ice. So until the rock breaks, my ice can keep the steam inside._ " She explained, after a moment Harry nodded in understanding. " _When you're ready, nod and we will repeat this._ "

He gave a quick nod before unleashing another bolt of lightning into the center of the ice seal; Luna followed up with unleashing her breath a moment after Harry did. Like before the collision of their breaths produced more steam that flowed into the tunnel, further increasing the pressure the superheated steam exerted on the limestone rock inside. Earlier while the steam was trapped behind the ice seal, it caused the tunnel to expand in all directions further into the cliffside; except for into the ravine as the ice seal strengthened the layer of rock that was immediately surrounding the tunnel's entrance. Like before Harry let up on his lightning breath after about 15 seconds, Luna following up a second later, sealing the tunnel's entrance again; and again like before after a five second break, they started the process over again, repeating another 4 times.

" **I need to take a break.** " The now fatigued storm dragon commented as he went to take a quick break.

" _I could use one to._ " She commented as she was starting to feel a bit winded. At that she layed down on the riverbed to rest for a few moments, while still keeping her eyes on the rock surrounding the ice seal. After she had been resting for the better part of a minute she noticed that tiny cracks were starting to form in the rocks from several feet from the ice seal, outwards to up nearly 20 feet. Her instincts let her know that the situation was about to become very dangerous. " _Harry, brace yourself._ "

" **Ok.** " He commented as he was already in the process of doing since his instincts flared up a moment after Luna's did as the cracks in the cliff's face became more prominent. He and Luna huddled closer to each other as they had their backs to the cliffside opposite of the one currently cracking; they folded their wings in, tightly pressing them against their scaly armored bodies. Their long necks and heads were curled inward putting their thicker torsos between their heads and the cracking cliff face. As the two dragons were preparing for the inevitable, the cracks over the course of about two seconds continuously spread throughout the cliffside surrounding the ice seal; the thick ring of cracks started a few feet from the ice seal, spreading outward to nearly 25 feet from it. A moment after the two dragons finished bracing themselves, the first leak from the highly pressurized steam behind the rock leaked out into the ravine, causing the entire chamber of steam to explosively depressurize; and that was when all hell breaks loose.

It was at that moment that the explosive decompression of the steam caused a wall of several hundred tons of rubble and rock to fly towards the two huddled dragons. The multitude or rocks and rubble were accelerated to speeds comparable to bullets as the peppered the two dragons; however the stones just bounced of the dragons thick armored scales. Although despite that their scales protected them from the rocky projectiles, both dragons were still mostly buried as the wall of rubble crashed into them, and the opposing cliffside that they were laying against. The upper portions of their backs and folded wings were still visible, but everything else was buried under several hundred tons of rubble and rocks.

When the chamber of highly pressurized steam inside the cliff decompressed, it released part of the shock wave into the end portion of the ravine that was responsible for the dragons being buried in the rubble tsunami. However the vast majority of the shockwave that would have come from the explosive decompression traveled through the rock away from the cliff face, and into the mountain that the ski lodge and Potter retreat were located on.

 **On the mountain, a little bit before the explosion**

Several moments before the ravine's cliff face exploded; Hermione and her parents were in the process of hiking towards the other side of the mountain to see the frozen lake. They were currently hiking through the thinly treed forest that surrounded the ravine; more specifically in between the mountain, and the beginning of the ravine. The slope that they were currently walking on wasn't by any means steep, but it was inclined enough that when the shockwave would pass through the rock, the foot deep snow would start sliding down the slope. As the shock wave ran through the rock, it wasn't strong enough for them to feel it, however they did notice when the snow much further up the mountain started rushing down towards them.

"We need to grab onto a tree!" Her father yelled out, this had the effect of knocking his two family members out of their stupor of seeing an avalanche rushing towards them. His wife started rushing through the snow towards him and the nearest tree that was about a dozen feet from him; in the process she grabbed her daughter's hand, pulling her with. The girl was still slightly in shock due to that a wave of snow was rushing down the mountain towards them.

"Hermione!" Her mother yelled out, attempting to get her daughter to snap out of it; after a few moments this worked and she was running through the snow in hand with her mother towards her father. After several more seconds of running, the family of three were holding each other in a death grip around the closest tree they could find as they braced for the incoming avalanche. "Don't worry Hermione, everything is going to be all right."

The girl kind of just nodded at that as she held onto her family even more tightly than before; her head buried into the tree, given she didn't want to see the avalanche that was racing towards them. The avalanche continued to race towards them as it gained more snow and started carrying some of the smaller trees in the forest with it as it continued to speed down the mountain slope. After a few moments she mustered some courage to look at was coming towards them, a second later pure unadulterated terror broke out on her entire face as she seen what was coming. By now the avalanche was only a few hundred feet from them, a wall of snow, ice and the occasional tree measuring over ten feet in height; and was threatening to bury them all under its tones of rushing snow.

"I DON'T WANT TO DIE!" She yelled out as the tsunami of snow was about to bury her and her parents alive, never to be heard from again. At this moment her parents squeezed her hands and turned their heads towards their daughter, small trails of tears leaking out from their eyes. Their teary eyes conveying their message of eternal love to their daughter as their mouths failed to do realized that this was going to be their final moments, but they were at least finding some solace in the fact that they were going to spend those last moments in the embrace of their family members.

It was seeing this final message in her parent's eyes that caused something to start burning within her. With renewed strength, she glanced inward to herself, hoping to find something. She found the spark that had been started inside her as she grabbed onto it with all of her might; and in turn it responded to her burning desire to survive with her family. It was in that moment, as the avalanche was right on top of them; that the girl, and her parents who still held her in a vice grip disappeared with nothing more than a small crack in the air.

The family of three reappeared further down the slope, right by the start of the ravine; they appeared with a small crack in the air as they were suddenly standing on the edge of the ravine. Hermione managed to remain standing abet barely, she was somewhat lost to what had happened; while her parents fell down to sitting positions in the snow, feeling like they were about to throw up. After a couple of moments their insides stopped churning as they were able to start processing what had just happened.

"What just happened?" Her mother questioned as she took in their surroundings. They were still in the loosely treed forest, but there was currently no sign of the avalanche that had threatened them moments prior. "One moment we were about to be buried, the next moment we're here."

"I'm not about to question the miracle that saved our lives, although it begs the question as where we are." Her father commented, just happy he and his family were alive at that moment. "You both alright?"

"Still a bit shaken, but glad to be alive right now." His wife commented, still feeling a bit queasy.

"I'm tired." Hermione mumbled as she continued to wobble where she stood, gradually losing her ability to stand up straight. It was a moment later that she finally succumbed to unconsciousness, her eyes closing as she started to fall backwards. Her parents had started turning to look at their daughter a moment after she started speaking and had just finished turning to see their daughter falling backwards into the ravine.

"HERMIONE!" They both yelled out as they rushed to grab hold of their falling daughter; she was already halfway to falling into the ravine when they started to try and grab her. Their hands reached ever closer to their unconscious daughter as she got closer to falling over the edge; after a moment they were about to grab her as she passed over the edge and started falling into the ravine. Her mother was about to rush into the ravine after her daughter, tears freely flowing from her eyes; when her husband grabbed her from behind, stopping her from joining their daughter. Her eyes seen how deep the ravine plunged into the earth, the fate of her daughter beginning to register in her mind.

"I can't lose you too." He managed to get out as he pulled his wife into a tight hug, tears flowing out of his eyes just as freely as her's. They just sat their in each other's embrace as they continued to cry over the fate of their daughter, not wanting to move from their current positions. A short while later they were disturbed in their mournful thoughts as they heard a loud rumbling coming from further up on the slope; they looked in horror to see the avalanche they thought they had escaped rushing towards them once again.

"We need to go." He got out as he quickly stood up, pulling his wife along with him as they started running away from the ravine and the oncoming avalanche. His wife nodded, her eyes still filled with tears as she got up with him, her head turning to where their daughter had fallen; she continued to look as tears overflowed from her eyes for several moments before she turned her head again in the direction they were running. The tears never stopped streaming from their eyes as they continued to run. The avalanche reached the ravine about thirty seconds later, as tons after tons of snow and ice rushed into the ravine.

* * *

Overall I think this chapter turned out pretty well, and the cliff hanger was just a good point to stop this chapter at. For the foreseeable future updates will be a bit erratic, I want to try for at least 1 update per month; but sure how circumstances will allow for that. chapter 6 is still a work in progress and wont be done for a while probably; but I will try to keep its progress updated on my profile page. Thanks to all those that fav/follow, and a big thanks to everyone who reviews.


End file.
